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In a cosmic game of pinball, black holes fling high-energy protons into space, where they zigzag around at near light-speeds before smashing into low-energy protons, finds a new study.

Then the collisions send bursts of gamma rays flying out from the center of our galaxy, which explains for the first time the mechanism for the high-energy jets first spotted in 2004.

This proton-slinging could explain more than this cataclysmic light show deep in our galaxy. The scientists suggest other black holes in the universe could rely on the pinball mechanism to produce enormous jets of light.

“Our galaxy's central supermassive object has been a constant source of surprise ever since its discovery some 30 years ago,” said study team member Fulvio Melia, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona (UA).

“Slowly but surely it has become the best-studied and most compelling black hole in the universe,” Melia said. “Now we're even finding that its apparent quietness over much of the spectrum belies the real power it generates a mere breath above its event horizon—the point of no return.”

In recent years, astronomers have tried to get at the secrets of this gamma-ray light show, which originates from our galactic middle in the neighborhood of a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* and boasting 3 million solar masses.

Like all black holes, Sagittarius A* is veiled in a whirlpool of churning spacetime, the outer border of which is called the event horizon. Nothing, not even light, can escape the black hole’s immense gravitation once it passes this perimeter, so astronomers have had a difficult time figuring out what exactly goes on around a black hole.

And also like many black holes, Sagittarius A* emits X-rays as it devours matter crossing the event horizon.

Based on years of theoretical sleuthing, Melia and his colleagues have suggested that chaotic magnetic fields near this event horizon accelerate protons and other particles to high energies...

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Comment from our TPOD "Electric Motor of the Milky Way": 

“For the electrical theorists, the modern radio and x-ray telescopes are catalysts for the evolution of cosmological ideas. By enabling us to see the Milky Way core in wavelengths not normally visible to the human eye, they reveal the “homopolar motor” that drives the Milky Way. A homopolar motor operates on direct current interacting with a strong magnetic field to produce rotary motion. The brushes which connect the rotary component to the surrounding stationary component are analogous to the “threads” which, in the picture above, reach upward to feed the motor of our galaxy."

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