NASA X-ray spacecraft reveals the shockingly violent history of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole

A glowing orange ring over a dark backgound.

The supermassive black hole sitting at the heart of our galaxy is considered to be a slumbering giant. However, an international X-ray spacecraft has discovered that this wasn't always the case. It turns out this supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), has erupted with powerful and dramatic flares over the course of the last 1,000 years.

This surprising discovery made possible by the joint Japanese-European-American XRISM spacecraft (X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) could change our understanding of how supermassive black holes with masses equivalent to millions or even billions of suns evolve and the role they play in shaping the entire galaxies that swirl around them.