Author: Robby Berman / Source: Big Think
- Scientists have provided the first confirmation that what’s at the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole.
- The discovery caught the interaction of gasses and a small star spinning around the mysterious object.
- This is thought to be compelling proof of the black hole’s central role in a galaxy.
At the center of the Milky Way, about 25,000 light years away, is a faint source of radio noise. It’s huge, estimated to weigh the equivalent of the 4.14 million suns. Astronomers have long suspected it’s a supermassive black hole, and they’ve named it “Sagittarius A*.” This week, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced that an international collaboration led by Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has collected the most definitive proof that this is exactly what Sagittarius A* is.
While astronomers can’t directly observe a black hole — light doesn’t escape it — they might, however, be able to see some of what goes on around one. Genzel and other scientists across the globe collected information regarding a small star called “S2” and the belt of gas, or accretion disc, that spin around Sagittarius A*. It’s in the interaction between the two that the new discovery lies, and it was made possible by a breakthrough in imaging.
The imaging breakthrough
Photo credit: MPE/GRAVITY team
The ESO has a four-telescope array, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the Paranal Observatory, rising 2635 meters above sea level in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
The amazing device that ultimately allowed the team to confirm Sagittarius A*’s identity leverages the Paranal telescopes. It’s called “GRAVITY,” and it combines all four in a single interferometer that has the resolution of a single mirror resolution of a single mirror 130 meters in diameter. “All of the sudden, we can see 1,000 times fainter than before,” said Genzel when…The post Confirmed: The Milky Way’s monstrous black hole appeared first on FeedBox.