The supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is never quiet – it’s constantly popping off.

The black hole is more than four million times the mass of the Sun. It grabs passing gas clouds, asteroids, and other objects. It also sponges up gas from the “winds” produced by nearby stars. This forms a swirling disk around the black hole. As material spirals inward, it gets extremely hot.

Astronomers watched the black hole with James Webb Space Telescope. They found that it produces several bright outbursts every day, with each one lasting an hour or longer. Between these outbursts there were fainter flares that usually lasted less than a minute.

The flares may have different causes.

Shorter flares may be caused by turbulence in the disk, which squeezes and heats pockets of gas. Particles bounce around inside these pockets, heating up and producing outbursts of energy. The longer flares may explode when magnetic fields twist together, then snap. That produces big outbursts of particles and energy like the giant flares on the Sun.

The astronomers hope to take an even longer look at the system, helping them learn more about the constant flare-ups from the Milky Way’s monster black hole.

The black hole is in Sagittarius. The constellation is in the south on summer evenings, and forms the outline of a teapot. The black hole is immersed in the “steam” above the spout – 26,000 light-years away.

Script by Damond Benningfield