NASA, thanks to the Chandra X-ray Observatory in Massachusetts, caught the record-breaking x-ray flare from a supermassive black hole, which is located at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

This is the second x-ray flare detected by scientists, the first occurring in Sept. 14, 2013 which produced with a flare that was 400 times brighter than normal. The first output was considered the largest flare ever observed, while the second one which occurred in October last year was 200 times brighter.

The flares occurred at the center of the Milky Way at a region named Sagittarius A*, or Sagittarius A-star, which contains a black hole that is four million times larger than the Earth's sun. After the second megaflare was detected, scientists and astronomers are now wondering what could be the cause.

The first theory that was concurred was that an asteroid flew too close to the black hole and ended up being torn apart. The debris could have caused a tidal disruption that heated up and produced the flares.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Fred Baganoff stated, "If an asteroid was torn apart, it would go around the black hole for a couple of hours - like water circling an open drain - before falling in. That's just how long we saw the brightest X-ray flare last, so that is an intriguing clue for us to consider."

The second theory is based on the magnetic field lines contained by the materials floating around Sagittarius A*. These field lines become tangled and tightly packed and whenever they reconfigure themselves, they cause a megaflare.

For now though, the astronomers and researchers remain unaware as to the true cause of the flares.

Gabriele Ponti, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics stated that the jury is still out as the cause of the giant flares, and added, "Such rare and extreme events give us a unique chance to use a mere trickle of infalling matter to understand the physics of one of the most bizarre objects in our galaxy."