Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2025

10 MAY-JUNE 2025 ASTRO PUBLISHING emitting a constant stream of flares with no periods of rest. The level of activity occurs over a wide range of time — from short interludes to long stretches. While some flares are faint flickers, lasting mere sec- onds, other flares are blindingly bright eruptions, which spew daily. There also are even fainter changes that surge over months. The new findings could help physi- cists better understand the funda- mental nature of black holes, how they get fed from their surrounding environments, and the dynamics and evolution of our own galaxy. “In our data, we saw constantly changing, bubbling brightness,” said Farhad Yusef-Zadeh of North- western University in Illinois, who led the study. “And then boom! A big burst of brightness suddenly popped up. Then, it calmed down again. We couldn’t find a pattern in this activity. It appears to be ran- dom. The activity profile of this black hole was new and exciting every time that we looked at it.” T he supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way appears to be having a party, complete with a disco ball-style light show. Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team of astrophysicists has gained the longest, most detailed glimpse yet of the “void” that lurks in the mid- dle of our galaxy. They found that the swirling disk of gas and dust (or accretion disk) orbiting the central supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A*, is Webb reveals rapid-fire light show from Sagittarius A* by NASA/ESA/CSA Amanda Morris Christine Pulliam