Russia's Spektr-RG Registers Unusual Activity Of Black Hole In Galaxy's Center - Institute

Daniyal Sohail Published August 14, 2019 | 05:50 PM

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th August, 2019) Russian space observatory Spektr-RG has registered unusual activity of the Sagittarius A supermassive black hole, located at a distance of almost 26,000 light years from the Earth, Mikhail Pavlinsky, the deputy head of the Space Research Institute of the Russian academy of Sciences, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"This is a supermassive black hole. Its X-ray luminosity is rather low, and we have always wondered why it is so low. Sometimes it shows eruptive activity .

.. It always attracts the attention of astrophysicists and astronomers. [NASA's] Swift observatory conducted observations two days ago and it published a statement saying that activity had been registered. We decided to study this area using our observatory as well and we confirmed the activity. It has not been in place just for an hour or two, like usually. It has been in place for quite a long time already," Pavlinsky said.

He added that many space-based observatories were currently studying the black hole.