Milky Way's monster black hole awoke 300 years ago

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — A black hole slumbering at the centre of our galaxy went into a "feeding frenzy" three centuries ago, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Tuesday.

Located around 26,000 light years from Earth, the black hole, known as Sagittarius A-star (Sgr A*), is a monster with a mass four million times that of the Sun.

Japanese astronomers, using ESA's XMM-Newton orbital telescope and US and Japanese X-ray satellites, discovered that clouds of gas brightened and faded in X-ray light when they passed near Sgr A*'s maw, ESA said in a press release.

The phenomenon is due to X-ray pulses that are believed to be residual bursts from a flare that happened 300 years ago.

"We have wondered why the Milky Way's black hole appears to be a slumbering...