Sagittarius A* is a supermassive black hole that lies at the center of the Milky Way.. It sometimes creates flares that are important for understanding the extreme conditions in its vicinity.. For the first time, the Webb Space Telescope has captured the flare of the black hole Sagittarius A* in the mid-infrared, helping astronomers fill a gap in knowledge about this object.. The study has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, writes Live Science.

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The supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* has a mass about 4 million times that of the Sun and is located 26,000 light-years from Earth.. This black hole is surrounded by an accretion disk of hot gas and dust that constantly spins and releases high-energy bursts of light that were thought to be caused by changes in the black hole's magnetic field..

Simulations suggest the flashes of light are caused by the black hole's magnetic field lines connecting as a huge release of energy occurs. Excited electrons zip along connected magnetic field lines at close to the speed of light and release high-energy photons, or particles of light.. This is known as synchrotron radiation.

But previously, astronomers had only seen these flares in the near-infrared, as well as in radio waves, but not in the mid-infrared.. Therefore, there was a knowledge gap that needed to be filled. According to scientists, thanks to new observations they managed to do this.

The Webb Telescope, which is located 1.5 million km from Earth, is equipped with instruments that can see space objects in different bands of infrared light to capture unique images.

Webb observations have confirmed that the flashes of light appearing in the accretion disk of the black hole Sagittarius A* are indeed caused by the connection of the magnetic field lines of this object. Astronomers saw connections between changes in measurements from shortwave observations and measurements in the mid-infrared, which indicate that accelerating electrons actually create synchrotron radiation.

Although scientists were able to find evidence that the black hole Sagittarius A*'s flashes of light are the result of synchrotron radiation, there is still much to be learned about how the black hole's magnetic field lines reconnect and the conditions in its accretion disk.

As Focus already wrote, 20 years ago, for the first time, a research probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan and took unique photographs of its surface. The Huygens probe landed for the first time in history on the surface of a world located in the outer solar system..

Focus also wrote that according to a recent study, the Universe is growing in size much faster than the standard model of its evolution suggests.. New physics may be the reason.