Astronomers have successfully captured the first images of polarized light and the magnetic fields surrounding Sagittarius A, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
This groundbreaking observation made with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has shown that the organized magnetic fields around Sagittarius A bear similarities to those around the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87. This finding is unexpected, considering that Sagittarius A has a mass approximately 4.3 million times that of the sun, whereas M87* is significantly larger, with a mass estimated to be around 6.5 billion suns.
The EHT's new observations of Sagittarius A suggest that strong and well-structured magnetic fields may be characteristic of all black holes. Additionally, since the magnetic fields in M87 drive powerful outflows or "jets," these results imply that Sagittarius A might also possess a subtle and faint jet of its own.
"This new image of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way, Sagittarius A, reveals that it has strong, twisted, and organized magnetic fields in its vicinity," stated Sara Issaoun, research co-leader and NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Einstein Fellow at Harvard & Smithsonian's Center for Astrophysics, in an interview with Space.com. "For some time, we've suspected that magnetic fields play a crucial role in how black holes consume material and generate powerful jets.
"This new image, together with a remarkably similar polarization pattern observed in the much larger and more powerful M87* black hole, indicates that strong and organized magnetic fields are essential for understanding how black holes interact with the surrounding gas and matter."
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