NASA Chandra finds possible supernova remnant near Milky Way central black hole Sagittarius C
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has spotted what may be the closest supernova remnant ever found to the black hole at the heart of our galaxy. The blast debris is still racing outward near 2 million miles per hour, wreckage from a star that exploded about 1,700 years ago.
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has detected what may be the closest supernova remnant ever found to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. The wreckage turned up as a blob of X-rays inside a bubble of ionized hydrogen gas in the Sagittarius C region, roughly 26,000 light-years from Earth. The shell of ejected material appears to be moving at around 2 million miles per hour, debris from a star that astronomers estimate exploded about 1,700 years ago. If the finding holds up under further study, it would be one of the closest known supernova remnants to the crowded region surrounding the galaxy's central black hole. That location matters for researchers because the area around Sagittarius A* is dense with gas, dust and intense gravity, which makes individual objects hard to pick out. Catching the X-ray signature of a relatively recent stellar explosion so near the galactic center gives astronomers a rare look at how massive stars live and die in one of the most extreme neighborhoods in the Milky Way. Reported by NASA and covered by Space.com and Scientific American.