![]() That accretion disk is where the action is - as the gas moves within immensely strong magnetic fields - so astronomers want to know more about how the disk works. The disk, the stars and an outer bubble of X-ray light “are like an ecosystem,” says astrophysicist Daryl Haggard of McGill University in Montreal and a member of the EHT collaboration. That gas, drawn toward Sgr A* by its gravitational pull, flows into a surrounding disk of glowing material, called an accretion disk. Sgr A* feeds on hot material pushed off of massive stars at the galactic center. Louder volume indicates brighter spots in the image. Very low tones represent material outside the black hole’s main ring. Here, the faster-moving material is heard at higher frequencies. Material closer to the black hole orbits faster than material farther away. ![]() The sonification sweeps clockwise around the black hole image. This sonification is a translation into sound of the Event Horizon Telescope’s image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. EHT’s images of Sgr A* and the M87 black hole skirt up to that inescapable edge. Their gravity traps light that falls within a border called the event horizon. Black holes are “natural keepers of their own secrets,” says physicist Lena Murchikova of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who is not part of the EHT team. That’s because, like all black holes, Sgr A* is an object so dense that its gravitational pull won’t let light escape. Yet Sgr A* and others like it remain some of the most mysterious objects ever found. That proximity means that Sgr A* is the most-studied supermassive black hole in the universe. That object sits at the center of the galaxy M87, about 55 million light-years from Earth.īut Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* for short, is “humanity’s black hole,” says astrophysicist Sera Markoff of the University of Amsterdam, and a member of the EHT collaboration.Īt 27,000 light-years away, the behemoth is the closest giant black hole to Earth. Three years ago, the same team released the first-ever image of a supermassive black hole ( SN: 4/10/19). A planet-spanning network of radio telescopes, known as the Event Horizon Telescope, worked together to create this much-anticipated look at the Milky Way’s giant.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |