A supermassive black hole, situated at the heart of our galaxy, erupted in an immensely powerful explosion two million years ago.
Researchers from the University of Sydney calculated the black hole, which has four million times the mass of the sun, erupted with 100 million times its power today.
The evidence for this research is provided by the Magellanic Stream, a filament of hydrogen gas trailing behind our galaxy’s two small companion galaxies. The findings show that black holes can rapidly (in cosmic terms) switch on and off.
Read more at University of Sydney