The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) shared a clear image of Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole located at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Space.com website announced Wednesday.
Scientists obtained the first visual of Sagittarius A* in May 2022.
“This new image of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way, Sgr A*, tells us that near the black hole are strong, twisted and ordered magnetic fields,” Sara Issaoun, who serves as one of the research co-leaders and is also an Einstein Fellow at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Space.com.
Astronomers captured the first visual of the supermassive black hole in polarized light.
Through the image, magnetic fields around the black hole can also be observed.
The first visual depiction of a black hole was unveiled by the EHT in 2019.
This black hole resides at the center of the M87 galaxy, which is located 55 million light-years away from Earth.
The imaged black hole, which is 6.5 billion times heavier than the Sun, is situated in the M87 Galaxy, which is 54.8 million light-years distant from the Milky Way Galaxy.
A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A).
Seen in polarized light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy has revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. This similarity also hints toward a hidden jet in Sgr A.
The results were published March 27, 2024, in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Scientists unveiled the first image of Sgr A— which is approximately 27,000 light-years away from Earth— in 2022, revealing that while the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole is more than a thousand times smaller and less massive than M87’s, it looks remarkably similar.
This made scientists wonder whether the two shared common traits outside of their looks.
To find out, the team decided to study Sgr A in polarized light. Previous studies of light around M87* revealed that the magnetic fields around the black hole giant allowed it to launch powerful jets of material back into the surrounding environment. Building on this work, the new images have revealed that the same may be true for Sgr A*.
“What we’re seeing now is that there are strong, twisted, and organized magnetic fields near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy,” said Sara Issaoun, NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Einstein Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and co-lead of the project. “Along with Sgr A* having a strikingly similar polarization structure to that seen in the much larger and more powerful M87* black hole, we’ve learned that strong and ordered magnetic fields are critical to how black holes interact with the gas and matter around them.”
Light is an oscillating, or moving, electromagnetic wave that allows us to see objects. Sometimes, light oscillates in a preferred orientation, and we call it “polarized.” Although polarized light surrounds us, to human eyes it is indistinguishable from “normal” light. In the plasma around these black holes, particles whirling around magnetic field lines impart a polarization pattern perpendicular to the field. This allows astronomers to see in increasingly vivid detail what’s happening in black hole regions and map their magnetic field lines.
“By imaging polarized light from hot glowing gas near black holes, we are directly inferring the structure and strength of the magnetic fields that thread the flow of gas and matter that the black hole feeds on and ejects,” said Harvard Black Hole Initiative Fellow and project co-lead Angelo Ricarte. “Polarized light teaches us a lot more about the astrophysics, the properties of the gas, and mechanisms that take place as a black hole feeds.”
But imaging black holes in polarized light isn’t as easy as putting on a pair of polarized sunglasses, and this is particularly true of Sgr A, which is changing so fast that it doesn’t sit still for pictures. Imaging the supermassive black hole requires sophisticated tools above and beyond those previously used for capturing M87, a much steadier target. EHT Project Scientist Geoffrey Bower from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, said, “Making a polarized image is like opening the book after you have only seen the cover. Because Sgr A* moves around while we try to take its picture, it was difficult to construct even the unpolarized image,” adding that the first image was an average of multiple images due to Sgr A*’s movement. “We were relieved that polarized imaging was even possible. Some models were far too scrambled and turbulent to construct a polarized image, but nature was not so cruel.”
Scientists are excited to have images of both supermassive black holes in polarized light because these images, and the data that come with them, provide new ways to compare and contrast black holes of different sizes and masses. As technology improves, the images are likely to reveal even more secrets of black holes and their similarities or differences.
Mariafelicia De Laurentis, EHT Deputy Project Scientist and professor at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, said, “The fact that the magnetic field structure of M87* is so similar to that of Sgr A* is significant because it suggests that the physical processes that govern how a black hole feeds and launches a jet might be universal among supermassive black holes, despite differences in mass, size, and surrounding environment. This result allows us to refine our theoretical models and simulations, improving our understanding of how matter is influenced near the event horizon of a black hole.”
The EHT has conducted several observations since 2017 and is scheduled to observe Sgr A* again in April 2024. Each year, the images improve as the EHT incorporates new telescopes, larger bandwidth, and new observing frequencies. Planned expansions for the next decade will enable high-fidelity movies of Sgr A*, may reveal a hidden jet, and could allow astronomers to observe similar polarization features in other black holes. Meanwhile, extending the EHT into space will provide sharper images of black holes than ever before.