Sagittarius A.. woke up 200 years ago and devoured cosmic bodies

 A recent study showed that the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy woke up 200 years ago to devour some nearby cosmic bodies before returning to hibernation. According to a study published in the journal "Nature" last week, the researchers said that the space observatory "IXBE" of the US space agency NASA detected an X-ray echo of this strong activity.

The supermassive black hole Sagittarius A, named SGR for short, is 4 million times more massive than the Sun and is located 27,000 light-years from Earth, in the swirling center of the Milky Way. "Sgr A has always been seen as a dormant black hole," said Frederic Maran, a researcher at the French Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory, who is the main author of the study.

But the international team of researchers discovered that around the end of the nineteenth century, "Sgr A" emerged from its slumber, consuming gas and dust that fell in its path. France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) likened the increase in X-ray light to "a single glowing worm that was hidden in a forest and suddenly became as bright as the sun."

It remains unclear why Sgr A briefly exits sleep mode. Astronomers hope that additional observations from the IXPE observatory will help them better understand what happened, and perhaps reveal more information about the origin of supermassive black holes, which are still shrouded in mystery.