A black hole in the center of our galaxy explodes in mysterious bursts. Scientists do not know why

There is a black hole in the Milky Way, which scientists say is 4 million times larger than the mass of the Sun. This was called Sagittarius A *, sometimes also called the star. Astronomers have been observing it for over 20 years.

A few months ago, they observed powerful infrared bursts directly emitted by a black hole. They were strong enough to break its so-called event horizon – one of the most fascinating phenomena in space. In figurative and in a nutshell, it is the sphere surrounding the star A which, in the manner of a semi-permeable membrane, only works in one direction – inside the black hole. Nobody still knows what is behind the horizon of events and what is hidden behind the black hole.

The bursts of infrared radiation observed in May were brighter than ever with star A.

We can see it in real time. This does not usually happen in astrophysics

– said Tuan Do, a UCLA scientist and a member of the research team.

Relax, it's just a black hole

According to Gizmodo, a team of scientists monitored the center of the galaxy for four nights this year with an infrared camera on the Keck II telescope. On May 13, the amount of infrared light emitted by the latter was multiplied by 75 in just two hours, as described in an article in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The black hole broke out the same way on April 20 at night and quickly faded. Scientists reassure me that I have no reason to worry and that the phenomenon is normal, although rare from our terrestrial point of view.

>>> See the first picture of the black hole. This can verify the theory of relativity.

3D galaxy

Astrophysicists do not stop to observe and deepen our knowledge of the cosmos closest to us. At the beginning of August, Polish scientists from the University of Warsaw announced that they had been able to develop a three-dimensional map of the Milky Way, our native galaxy. By observing the Cepheids, stars thousands of times brighter than the Sun, they could also accurately show the shape of the disk of the galaxy. This is not flat, until now only suspected, and in a subtle way curved around the edges.

A team of Polish astronomers, to create a three-dimensional map of the galaxy, used data of 2.4 thousand Cepheids. Most of these stars are recently discovered objects through observations made at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.