Source: Science Magazine AAAS
Detailed view of the Milky Way's core.
Image credits: NASA/ESA/SSC/ CXC/ STScI
The Milky Way's center houses a supermassive black hole so sleepy that it probably hasn't swallowed a decent meal for years. Yet a growing body of evidence indicates that the now-dormant beast, about as massive as 4 million suns, fueled a firestorm of activity just a few million years ago, including the sustained emission of some of the highest energy radiation in the universe. A new study offers a dramatic explanation for these past fireworks: The sleeping giant woke when a smaller black hole from another galaxy smashed into it.(read more)
