Astronomers have detected a mid-infrared flare from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy for the very first time, and it’s shedding new light on the complex physics driving these energetic outbursts.

Sagittarius A* is the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. As supermassive black holes go, it is fairly quiet. It’s not creating any galaxy-wide tantrums that should worry us. It does flare up though,

Using the MIRI instrument onboard the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of scientists made the first-ever detection of a mid-IR flare from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive massive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way.