Early people saw black hole's light

• Autores: Anil Ananthaswamy
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2936, 2013, págs. 8-9
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Some 2 million years ago, around the time the early people were learning to walk upright, a light appeared in the night sky, rivaling the moon for brightness and size. But it was more fuzzball than orb. The glow came from the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's heart suddenly exploding into life. This novel picture emerges from work announced this week at a conference in Sydney, Australia, which ingeniously pieces together two seemingly unrelated, outstanding galactic puzzles. As well as offering a welcome way to solve both, it gives an unexpected glimpse of how the cosmos might have appeared to Earthlings 2 million years ago. It also paints supermassive black holes as unpredictable, and capable of generating some of the brightest flares in the universe, almost on a whim. That in turn throws up the possibility of modern humans being treated to a similar sight sometime in the future.