United States-sized telescope views structure of Milky Way's black hole

William Atkins
Thursday, 04 September 2008 19:32

Science - Space

The astronomy team was able to resolve features of the black hole as small as its event horizon, which is a boundary surrounding a black hole in which gravity is so warped that light cannot emerge from inside the event horizon and anything (matter, light) from the outside is sucked through the event horizon and disappears.

The author of one of the papers, Christopher Reynolds (Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, U.S.A.) stated, “We have now entered a new era, one in which we can directly image structure at the event horizon of a black hole.”

When the team looked at Sagittarius A* they found it is not centered on the black hole but is off to one side and smaller in size that previously thought.

The team hypothesize, so far, about two possible scenarios based on what they found: (1) that Sagittarius A* could be a part of a rotating disk surrounding the black hole or (2) that it could be the source where matter is ejected out from the black hole in the form of a energetic jet.

These hypotheses can now be tested, and verified or denied, by using advanced methods based on this study. For instance, the team will next combine larger numbers of radio telescopes, at more locations around the world, in order to increase the amount of detail possible from the array of telescopes—its resolution.

They also plan to use shorter wavelength of radio waves (less than 1.3 millimeter), which will better be able to "see" through the dense cloud of dust and gas in between the Earth and the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.