Remember that in 2022, astronomers took the first photo of a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) located at the center of the Milky Way galaxy? They aimed their equipment at the camera and captured new images of the mysterious phenomenon.
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The first-ever image of Sgr A* was taken using the Event Horizon Telescope, a worldwide network of radio astronomical observatories. And now, astronomers have fired up that telescope again to measure the magnetic field of a black hole in polarized states for the first time. time. This image shows a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to what astronomers observed in 2019, when Messier 87 (M87) was taken, the first photo of a black hole at the center of a galaxy. .
These results are Published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters And it suggests that these strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. In addition, observations by astronomers of M87 revealed that the supermassive black hole is ejecting powerful jets of material. Recent observations of Sgr A* show that it may be emitting similar jets, even though it is 1,000 times smaller than the black hole at 100 meters. Center of M87.
”What we are now seeing is a strong, twisted, organized magnetic field near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.,” project co-leader Sarah Isaun, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, said in a statement.In addition to having a polarization structure strikingly similar to that seen in the much larger and more powerful M87* black hole, Sgr A* also shows how black holes interact with surrounding gas and matter. It turns out that strong, well-ordered magnetic fields are important for crabs. .”
”Creating a polarized image is like opening a book after only looking at the cover.” Jeffrey Bower, EHT project scientist and researcher at the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, explained in a statement.When I tried to photograph the Sgr A*, it moved around so much that it was difficult to construct even a non-polarized image.”
