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January 13, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The Milky Way\u2019s Central Black Hole May Have Appeared Shockingly Different Just a Few Hundred Years Ago<\/p>\n New research suggests that the x-ray light coming from the Milky Way\u2019s central black hole Sagittarius A* has changed dramatically in the span of just a few hundred years<\/p>\n By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Ginsburg (University of Florida), N. Budaiev (University of Florida), T. Yoo (University of Florida). Image processing: A. Pagan (STScI)<\/p>\n Supermassive black holes are mysterious bodies. Scientists aren\u2019t entirely sure how these beating hearts at the centers of most large galaxies formed. That includes Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy.<\/p>\n Now a new preprint study is shedding light on Sagittarius A* by studying what happens as material falls toward the black hole.<\/p>\n Typically, as dust, gas and other material sink toward a supermassive black hole, the black holes emit an \u201cabsolute torrent of light,\u201d says Steve DiKerby, a postdoctoral researcher at the department of physics and astronomy at Michigan State University and co-author of the new paper. Sagittarius A*, however, is pretty dim. \u201cIt\u2019s emitting only a tiny trickle of radiation,\u201d DiKerby says.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Yet that wasn\u2019t always the case. Rather DiKerby and his colleagues\u2019 work suggests that the disk of material swirling around Sagittarius A* once emitted much, much brighter x-rays\u2014as much as 10,000 times brighter than those it emits today. Incredibly, that may have been the case as recently as a few hundred years ago, the research suggests.<\/p>\n The findings were presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society earlier this month and have been accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n The work is \u201cvery important,\u201d says Joseph Michail, a postdoc at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. It \u201ctells us about the \u2018recent\u2019 history\u201d of Sagittarius A*\u2014something that had been missing from the research record, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThis work shows something completely different from the Sgr A* we know and love\u2014it was incredibly bright,\u201d Michail says.<\/p>\n DiKerby and his colleagues used a powerful new x-ray telescope called XRISM (X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) to look at clouds of molecular gas surrounding the black hole. These clouds are thought to reflect x-rays coming from around the black hole, acting as a \u201ccosmic mirror\u201d into its past, DiKerby explains.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can not only know how bright Sagittarius A* is today but also how bright it appeared 100 years ago and 1,000 years ago,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n To put its change in brightness into perspective, the brightest observed x-ray flare from Sagittarius A* happened in 2013, but that event had only 1 percent of the brightness of what the black hole may have emitted perhaps as recently as a few hundred years ago, Michail says.<\/p>\n \u201cEffectively, XRISM is telling us that something substantial happened\u201d to the black hole sometime in the past few centuries, Michail says. What, however, remains a mystery\u2014for now.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. 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I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 13, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm The Milky Way\u2019s Central Black Hole May Have Appeared Shockingly Different Just a Few Hundred Years Ago New research suggests that the x-ray light coming from the Milky Way\u2019s central black hole Sagittarius A* has changed dramatically in the span of just a few<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[706,12160,4125,6327,22103,5181,1862,2833],"class_list":{"0":"post-41523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-black","9":"tag-brighter","10":"tag-hole","11":"tag-sagittarius","12":"tag-shone","13":"tag-supermassive","14":"tag-times","15":"tag-today"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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