Astronomers have detected a blob of hot gas whizzing around the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy at an extraordinary speed.

The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A*, is around 4 million times more massive than the sun and stretches around 40 million miles (60 million kilometers) across.

Normally, anything that gets too close to such a massive black hole gets dragged beyond its event horizon by an overwhelming gravitational pull.

Related: Are black holes wormholes? .

Researchers were calibrating ALMA to focus on Sagittarius A* for the EHT project when they detected an unusual X-ray flare coming from the space surrounding the black hole. .

The only explanation for this type of acceleration is that the flare originated from the black hole's magnetically arrested disk — a ring of matter surrounding a black hole that is being held in place by a strong magnetic field, which counterbalances the forces of gravity pulling the matter into the cosmic void.

Different research groups have detected similar signals from hot spots rapidly orbiting other black holes, according to the statement.

This could potentially signal that the gas blob will eventually slow down enough for the black hole's gravity to overcome the magnetic shielding surrounding it and finally pull the gas into its infinite maw. .

Related: Do black holes explode.

While the new study improves our understanding of the Milky Way's black hole heart, researchers said there is still a lot more to learn about Sagittarius A*.

—The closest black hole to Earth is no more — in fact, it never existed .