Black hole shock: Watch Milky Way’s central black hole FLARE as it feasts

The UCLA astronomers analysed more than 13,000 observations of the black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), that were captured since 2003 by the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.

And the 13 May event was twice as bright as any previous observation.

Combined with the two outbursts observer earlier in the year, astronomers now believe a feeding frenzy of sorts might be underway.

Tuan Do, the study’s lead author, said: “The first image I saw that night, the black hole was so bright I initially mistook it for the star S0-2, because I had never seen Sagittarius A* that bright.

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