Our Supermassive Black Hole Rivaled the Sun in the Ancient X-ray Sky

TL;DR

This paper investigates the historical X-ray outbursts of Sagittarius A*, revealing they could have significantly impacted planetary atmospheres and habitability in the solar system and nearby systems.

Contribution

It provides a calculation of the X-ray luminosity during past outbursts of Sagittarius A* and assesses their potential effects on planetary atmospheres and habitability.

Findings

Past outbursts could produce X-ray flux comparable to the Sun's current emission.

Hard X-ray flux during outbursts exceeds that of X-class solar flares.

Impacts on planetary atmospheres vary with distance and planetary mass.

Abstract

Sagittarius A* (SgrA*) lying in the Galactic Centre $8$ kpc from Earth, hosts the closest supermassive black hole known to us. It is now inactive, but there is evidence indicating that about six million years ago it underwent a powerful outburst where the luminosity could have approached the Eddington limit. Motivated by the fact that in extragalaxies the supermassive black holes with similar masses and near-Eddington luminosities are usually strong X-ray emitters, we calculate here the X-ray luminosity of SgrA*. For that, we assume that the outburst was due to accretion of gas or the tidal disruption of a star. We show that these cases could precipitate on Earth a hard X-ray (i.e. $h\nu>2~{\rm keV}$) flux comparable to that from the current quiescent sun. The flux in harder energy band $20~{\rm keV}<h\nu<100~{\rm keV}$, however, surpasses that from an X-class solar flare, and the irradiation timescale is also much longer, ranging from weeks to $10^5$ years depending on the outburst scenario. In the solar system gas giants will suffer the biggest impact in their atmospheres. Lower-mass planets such as Earth receive a level of radiation that might have played a role in the evolution of their primitive atmospheres, so that a detailed study of the consequences deserves further investigation. Planetary systems closer to SgrA* receive higher irradiance levels, making them more likely uninhabitable.