More than 300 astronomers from 30 centers have achieved the first image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way, around which our entire galaxy revolves. Although it has 4 million solar masses, it is much smaller than another supermassive black hole photographed in 2019 in the galaxy M87, which would confirm the predictions made by Albert Einstein in General Relativity about the nature of these huge cosmic objects..
In a historic event that will change astronomy forever, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced today in a series of simultaneous conferences worldwide that it had obtained the first image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole located in the heart of the Milky Way. According to astronomers, the image provides overwhelming evidence that the object located at the center of our galaxy is indeed a supermassive black hole, opening the possibility for future research to pinpoint the role played by these huge structures in the formation and galaxy evolution.
integrated telescopes
Sagittarius A* it is about 27,000 light-years away from Earth: obtaining an image of such a distant object is a true scientific feat. For that, a global team of researchers called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration was created, which united eight existing radio observatories around the planet to form a single, much more powerful virtual telescope.
According to a press release, the virtual radio telescope “the size of the Earth” observed Sagittarius A* for several nights in 2017, continuously collecting data for many hours. As a result, multiple images of the massive object located in the galactic center were obtained from different positions and with different resolutions, which were finally integrated to compose the image that we can see today.
Video: Starting with a wide view of the Milky Way, the video dives into the dense clouds of gas and dust in our galactic center, all the way to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO) / YouTube.
Einstein was right
The image of Sagittarius A* is surprisingly similar to what we already knew of the supermassive black hole located in the center of the galaxy M87, “photographed & rdquor; in 2019 by the same team of researchers. However, Sagittarius A* is much smaller: it has 4 million solar masses and the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87 has 6.5 billion solar masses.
Scientists believe this would confirm predictions made by Albert Einstein in General Relativity, around the characteristics of black holes. The similarity between both images would indicate that the gas around the black holes moves in a similar way, depending on certain parameters predicted by the German physicist.
The differences in the images would be related to the size of the supermassive black holes: it is worth remembering that these objects are invisible, what we can glimpse are the reactions that their impressive gravitational attraction generates in the gas that surrounds them. These reactions make up the “ring” bright that can be seen in the image, surrounding a central darkness technically known as “shadow & rdquor ;.
Important Spanish participation
In a series of studies published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, astronomers remarked that the possibility of having images of two supermassive black holes of such different magnitudes could advance the understanding of these mysterious objects, as well as the role they play. on the dynamics of the cosmos.
In addition, the continued expansion of the EHT network and major technology upgrades will allow even more impressive images and even movies of black holes to be shared in the near future. It is worth noting that there was a important Spanish participation in these investigations, with more than ten scientists from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia and the University of Valencia among the team of specialists who made this historic milestone possible.
References
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way. Kazunori Akiyama et al. The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac6674
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. II. EHT and Multiwavelength Observations, Data Processing, and Calibration. Kazunori Akiyama et al. The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac6675
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. III. Imaging of the Galactic Center Supermassive Black Hole. Kazunori Akiyama et al. The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac6429
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. IV. Variability, Morphology, and Black Hole Mass. Kazunori Akiyama et al. The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac6736
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. V. Testing Astrophysical Models of the Galactic Center Black Hole. Kazunori Akiyama et al. The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac6672
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. SAW. Testing the Black Hole Metric. Kazunori Akiyama et al. The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac6756