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LiveScience
LiveScience
Brandon Specktor

Milky Way's black hole 'exhaust vent' discovered in eerie X-ray observations

X-ray observations of the Milky Way's center show a bright white black hole connected to a steaming 'exhaust vent' by a river of blue gas.

The monster black hole at the center of our galaxy may be unleashing huge, gassy explosions — and now, astronomers think they've pinpointed the exact spot where that superheated gas is spilling into the Milky Way.

Acting like a gargantuan exhaust vent, the newly discovered feature is a bright region of X-ray energy that's nearly 700 light-years from the galaxy's supermassive black hole but linked to it by a long "chimney" of superhot gas. 

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