Gigantic X-rays flares offer new insight into the whirling maelstrom just outside supermassive black holes

We believe our Galaxy gained a lot of its mass by eating smaller galaxies whole (a process called galactic cannibalism). As these galaxies are swallowed by the Milky Way, their star clusters also tag along with them. My research asks: how many of these massive star clusters were leftovers from the Milky Way’s ancient meals?

Each time the shutter closes on the world’s largest astronomical camera, 25 gigabytes of raw pixels begin a year-long journey. At the Rubin Observatory, images reach California in seconds, are scrubbed of artifacts, and spark alerts worldwide within a minute. Months later, the archive is reprocessed to reveal objects too faint for any single exposure, then tested against more than 3,000 requirements. A scientist who builds the pipeline explains why trusting the data is as hard as collecting it.