MEXICO: A NASA telescope managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory spotted a baffling glow of high-energy X-rays that could, among other things, be a zombie star feeding on companions, according to scientists.
In the process of scanning the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) found a buzzing party of young and old stars, smaller black holes and other varieties of stellar corpses dancing around a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*.
Four possible scenarios have been offered for the unexpected glowing spotted by NuSTAR, the first telescope capable of discerning crisp images of the heart of the Milky Way galaxy in high-energy X-rays. None of them match what is known from previous research, so astronomers are scratching their heads in search of the rationale behind the puzzling observation.
“This new result just reminds us that the galactic center is a bizarre place,” study co-author Chuck Hailey, of Columbia University, said in a statement. “In the same way people behave differently walking on the street instead of jammed on a crowded rush-hour subway, stellar objects exhibit weird behavior when crammed in close quarters near the supermassive black hole.”
NuSTAR, a Small Explorer mission led by the California Institute of Technology, was launched into space in 2012 and recently returned new images of the space around the supermassive black hole. Four possible reasons for the bright light were outlined in a study published in the journal Nature.
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