University of Amsterdam: Black hole in the centre of the Milky Way unpredictable in the long term too
Astronomers have known for decades that Sagittarius A*, the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way, flashes every day and sometimes gets ten to a hundred times brighter than normal. To find out more about Sagittarius A*’s flares, an international team of astronomers searched for patterns in 15 years of data. That long data set is available because NASA’s Swift satellite has been glancing at the central black hole every three days since 2006.
It turns out that from 2006 to 2008, the area near the black hole was flashing quite a bit. But between 2008 and 2012, it was pretty quiet. And after 2012, the flares increased again.
The researchers could not distinguish a pattern. “So how the flares occur exactly remains unclear,” says co-author Jakob van den Eijnden (now University of Oxford (United Kingdom), formerly University of Amsterdam). “It was previously thought that more flares follow after gaseous clouds or stars pass by the black hole, but there is no evidence for that yet. And we cannot yet confirm the hypothesis that the magnetic properties of the surrounding gas play a role either.”
Summer school
The research was led by Alexis Andres from El Salvador. He participated in the summer of 2019 as an undergraduate student in the ASPIRE programme of the Anton Pannekoek Institute of Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam. In this programme, talented students from countries with fewer academic development opportunities work on an astronomical project for a summer. After summer school, Andres returned to El Salvador and devoted himself to this research for two years. He led the international research team from a distance because of the corona restrictions. Andres has been studying for a master’s degree in astronomy in Mexico City since August 2021. He wants to become a professional scientist and wishes to bring astronomy to his home country.
Long dataset
“The long dataset of the Swift observatory did not just happen by accident,” says co-author Nathalie Degenaar (University of Amsterdam). She was the supervisor of Andres and Van den Eijnden during the summer school. While Degenaar was doing her PhD, NASA granted her request for the measurements. “And since then, I’ve been applying for prolongation regularly. It’s a very special observing programme that allows us to conduct a lot of research.”
Over the next few years, the astronomers expect to gather enough data to be able to rule out whether the variations in the flares near Sagittarius A* are due to passing gaseous clouds or stars, or whether something else is going on.