ESA’s Integral space observatory has spotted a blast of gamma rays from a suspected black hole in the Milky Way. The outburst occurred on September 17, 2006, and gradually built in brightness over the course of a few days before declining again. It’s this rise and fall of brightness, called a light curve, that allowed astronomers identify the source as a black hole. It’s likely that a disk of gas and material orbiting the black hole became unstable, and a portion of it collapsed, creating the outburst.

Integral catches a new erupting black hole

The results, described in the article „IGJ 717497-2821: A new X-ray Nova“ by Roland Walter et al., appeared in „Astronomy and Astrophysics 461, L17-L20 (2007)“.
A free access online version can be found here.