WASHINGTON: On Wednesday, astronomers reported that they had discovered a robust and well-organized magnetic field spiraling around the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way. This finding has revealed hitherto unidentified characteristics of the incredibly potent entity that lurks in the center of our galaxy.
The magnetic field pattern encircling the edge of Sagittarius A*, also known as Sgr A*, is similar to that of the only other black hole ever observed. This other black hole is larger and located at the center of a nearby galaxy called Messier 87, often known as M87. They said that this suggests that powerful magnetic fields might be a characteristic shared by black holes.
According to the researchers, the M87 black hole, also known as M87*, can shoot strong material jets into space because of the magnetic field surrounding it. This suggests that, despite the fact that these jets have not yet been found orbiting Sgr A*, they may exist and be visible soon, they continued.
A new image that the researchers provided reveals the magnetic field structure and shows the atmosphere surrounding Sgr A* in polarized light for the first time. Electrons, which are subatomic particles, rotate around magnetic field lines to produce polarized light.
Sgr A* is located approximately 26,000 light-years (the distance light travels in a year, or 5.9 trillion miles or 9.5 trillion kilometers) from Earth and has a mass 4 million times that of our sun.
“We’ve thought for a long time that magnetic fields are important for how black holes feed and expel matter in strong jets,” said co-leader of the study and astronomer Sara Issaoun of the Centre for Astrophysics — Harvard & Smithsonian.
