At the center of our Milky Way galaxy is a supermassive black hole. Could this black hole become a quasar? First, let's brush up on what a quasar is. A quasar is what happens when a supermassive black hole actively engulfs material in the galaxy's core. The area around the black hole becomes extremely hot and emits bright radiation that we can see billions of light years away.
Our Milky Way is a galaxy and, like all galaxies, has a supermassive black hole at its center. Could this black hole overeat and become a quasar? Quasars, it is worth noting, are very rare events in the life of galaxies and occur, as a rule, in the early stages of the evolution of a galaxy, when it is young and filled with gas.
Usually, the material in the galactic disk rotates far from the supermassive black hole, and is sorely lacking in material. Sometimes a cloud of gas or a wandering star gets too close, he or she is torn apart and we see a short flash while feeding the black hole. But you don't get a quasar when a black hole bites into a star. You need an incredible amount of material to feed the hole a lot of gas, dust, planets and stars. The accretion disk grows; the swirling vortex of material becomes larger than our solar system, its temperature is comparable to that of the stars. This disk is generated by the bright quasar, not the black hole itself.
Quasars can appear once in the life of a galaxy. And if that happens, the quasar lives for only a few million years, while the black hole consumes all available material, like the drain hole of your washbasin. After the black hole absorbs everything, the accretion disk disappears, the light of the quasar is turned off, and the waiters take away the empty dishes.
Sounds creepy, actually. According to New York University scientist Gabe Perez-Giza, although a quasar can emit 100 trillion times more energy than the Sun, we are far enough from the center of the Milky Way to receive very little light - perhaps one hundredth of a percent of the intensity of our star.
Since the Milky Way is a middle-aged galaxy, its quasar days are probably over. However, a powerful event is coming that could spawn such an outbreak. In 4 billion years, Andromeda will collide with the Milky Way, shaking the nuclei of both galaxies. During this colossal event, supermassive black holes in two galaxies will interact, confusing the orbits of stars, planets, gas and dust.
Something will be thrown into space, others will be torn apart and fed to black holes. And if there is enough material, perhaps our Milky Way will again become a quasar. Which again will be completely harmless for us. As for the collision of galaxies, this is another story.
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It is likely that our Milky Way was already a quasar billions of years ago. And it can become it again in billions of years. This is an interesting enough event to gather and wait for it. Only some four billion years. Perhaps immortality will help us survive to this day.
Ilya Khel