An echo has been detected from a black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Listen here!

A group of scientists managed Captures the sound emitted by a black hole at the center of the Milky Way 30,000 light years from Earth. This discovery was recently published in the journal natureled by scientist Frédéric Marin, of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)CNRS) at the Strasbourg Observatory.

The black hole in question is Arc A* (Sgr A*)And Discovered in 1974 by astronomers Bruce Pallick and Robert Brown, by a bright, highly compressed radio source located in the center of the Milky Way, near the constellation boundaries of Sagittarius and Scorpio. he 4 million times the mass of the SunIt is about 26,000 light-years away from our star.

show it The noise of this colossal giant came from a long period of dormancy, 200 years ago, after the explosion. But at that time, there was no equipment capable of capturing sounds.

about the emitted echo

In the Early nineteenth centuryAnd Sgr A* “wakes up” from sleep (known as Quiescence) that it existed and “swallowed” cosmic bodies that were close to it, that is, for a year. It was her time He’s the one who made the noiseAfter “gobbling up” gas and dust. After that, he “slept” again. Scientists were able to determine the sound emitted through a telescope X-ray imaging explorer (IXPE) from NASA.

This equipment was capable of Trace with great precision the polarization of the X-ray light as well as its source – something that was previously considered impossible. Acting like a ‘compass’, the polarized light points directly at Sgr A*.

This finding explains why the Galactic molecular clouds near Sgr A* are much brighter than usual: Because it reflects the X-rays emitted from it for 200 years. According to the study, the Sgr A* emitted X-ray echoes with an intensity that was at least a million times greater than what is currently being emitted on his part.

“The X-ray reflection from Sgr A* by the dense gas in the galactic center region provides a means to study past combustion activity on time scales of hundreds to thousands of years,” the scientists explained.

Hear the sound emitted by the Sgr A* in the video below:

Now, scientists intend to continue studying this black hole for investigation necessary physical mechanisms for any other phenomenon of this kind Transition from a “dormant” state to an active state.