NASA missions observe massive black hole flare

PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Scientists now have a better understanding of how black holes come to launch flares, thanks to the observational skills of two NASA Explorer missions -- Swift and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR.

A black hole flare is an expelled beam of X-rays. For the first time, scientists have linked this phenomenon with the excitement of a black hole's corona. Swift and NuSTAR witnessed a black hole flare as the corona's excited material suddenly launched away from its host.

The discovery "will help us understand how supermassive black holes power some of the brightest objects in the universe," Dan Wilkins, a scientist at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Canada, said in a press release.