Astronomers have discovered a gas blob orbiting our supermassive in the bizarre gravitational environment found in the heart galaxy. Black holeSuperspeed
Its characteristics are helping astronomers probe the space immediately surrounding Sagittarius A* in the search for answers about why the galactic center flickers and flares across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
The black hole may be surrounded by a rotating disk of material that is modulated by a strong magnetic field.
It confirms what we already knew: A black hole’s space is wild.
“We think we’re looking at a hot bubble of gas zipping around Sagittarius A* on an orbit similar in size to that of the planet MercuryHowever, you can complete the loop in around 70 minutes.” says astrophysicist Maciek WielgusThe Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Germany.
This requires a staggering speed of 30 percent of the speed light!
Sgr A* got a huge moment in the spotlight earlier this year when the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration A picture of the black hole that was years in the making has been revealed.
Telescopes around the world worked together to take observations of the galactic center, which combined to reveal the donut-shaped ring of material swirling around Sgr A*, heated up to incredible temperatures.
One of the telescopes included in the collaboration is the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a radio telescope array located in the Atacama desert in Chile.
Wielgus, along with his colleagues, noticed something unusual while studying the data only from ALMA.
The galactic center produced an X-ray flash in April 2017 while data collection was underway. It was an accident that this happened as astronomers collected data for Event Horizon Telescope.
These long flares were previously associated with hot gas blobs that orbit very close and at high speeds.
“What is really new and interesting is that such flares were so far only clearly present in X-ray and infrared observations of Sagittarius A*,” Wielgus explains. “Here is a strong indication that radio observations also show orbiting hotspots.”
This is the theory behind the flares. The team has analysed the ALMA data to support this idea.
The hot spot emits strong light. polarizedThe signature of is displayed on the twisted or spelled out form. synchrotron acceleration – both of which occur in the presence of a strong magnetic field.
Radio light may glow because of the hot spots cooling down and becoming visible at longer wavelengths.
“We have strong evidence that these flares are magnetically generated and our observations provide us with a clue as to the geometry of the process.” says astrophysicist Monika MościbrodzkaRadboud University, the Netherlands
“The new data can be extremely useful in building a theory of these events.”
According to the team’s analysis, the hot spot may be embedded in a Magnetically attached disk. This is a disc of material that is spinning around and feeding into a black hole, but at a slower rate than the magnetic field.
The team was able, through modeling that combined the data, to give stronger constraints on the motion and shape of this magnetic field and the formation and evolution the hotspot within it.
However, there are still many things we don’t know. Looking at Black holesIt is very difficult and there are some discrepancies in comparison with. Other flares can be observed infrared.
These kinks can be ironed out by the team hoping to simultaneously observe radio and infrared future hot spot flares.
“Hopefully, one day, we will be comfortable saying that we ‘know’ what is going on in Sagittarius A*,” Wielgus says.
The research was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
