Tag Archive for 'Sagittarius A*'

An artist’s impression of a disk of cool interstellar gas surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Image credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF / S. Dagnello.

ALMA Spots Rotating Disk of Cool Hydrogen around Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Jun 7, 2019 by News Staff

There is a supermassive black hole of nearly 4 million solar masses at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. A large reservoir of hot and cooler hydrogen...

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope produced this composite image of the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy. Note that the center of the Galaxy is located within the bright white region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ESA / CXC / STScI.

NASA: 360-Degree Visualization Shows Galactic Center

Mar 26, 2019 by News Staff

A new immersive, 360-degree, ultra-high-definition visualization provides more details of what NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory sees in X-rays around...

Large Magellanic Cloud on Collision Course with Milky Way Galaxy

Jan 7, 2019 by News Staff

The Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located approximately 163,000 light-years away, is on a collision course with the Milky Way with which it will...

This visualization uses data from simulations of orbital motions of gas swirling around at about 30% of the speed of light on a circular orbit around the supermassive black hole. Image credit: ESO / GRAVITY Collaboration / L. Calçada.

Astronomers Observe Interstellar Material Orbiting Close to Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Oct 31, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using the GRAVITY instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) have detected flares of infrared radiation coming from the...

Einstein’s General Relativity Passes Black Hole Test

Jul 27, 2018 by News Staff

At the center of our Milky Way Galaxy lies the 4-million-solar-mass black hole named Sagittarius A*. This gravitational monster is surrounded by a group...

This 3D spectro-imaging data cube was produced using software called OsrsVol, short for OSIRIS-Volume Display; Ciurlo et al developed this custom volume rendering tool to separate G3, G4, and G5 from the background emission; once the 3D analysis was performed, the astronomers could clearly distinguish the G-objects, which allowed them to follow their movement and see how they behave around the supermassive black hole. Image credit: Ciurlo et al.

Strange Star-Like Objects Spotted near Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Jun 13, 2018 by News Staff

Three new dusty stellar objects — so-called ‘G-type’ objects — have been spotted at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. This 3D spectro-imaging...

Artist’s impression of a massive black hole. Image credit: Alain Riazuelo / CC BY-SA 2.5.

Milky Way Galaxy May Have Several ‘Wandering’ Supermassive Black Holes

Apr 25, 2018 by News Staff

In a new study, a team of astronomers from Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics, the University of Washington, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris,...

10,000 Stellar-Mass Black Holes Exist in Milky Way’s Central Region, Astronomers Say

Apr 5, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered what they believe are 12 stellar-mass black holes gathered around Sagittarius A*,...

A new high-resolution map of the magnetic field lines in gas and dust swirling around Milky Way’s central black. Image credit: Roche et al, doi: 10.1093/mnras/sty129.

Clearest Infrared Image of Milky Way’s Central Region Unveiled

Feb 28, 2018 by News Staff

Using data from the CanariCam infrared camera on the Gran Telescopio Canarias, astronomers have created a high resolution map of the magnetic field lines...

An ALMA image of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy showing the location of 11 young protostars within about 3 light-years of Sagittarius A*. The lines indicate the direction of the bipolar lobes created by high-velocity jets from the protostars. The illustrated star in the middle of the image indicates the location of Sagittarius A*. Image credit: ALMA / Yusef-Zadeh et al / B. Saxton / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

ALMA Spots Eleven Protostars near Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Nov 30, 2017 by News Staff

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has revealed the telltale signs of 11 low-mass stars forming close – within just 3 light-years...

High-Energy ‘Trap’ Spotted in Milky Way’s Center

Jul 19, 2017 by News Staff

The center of our Milky Way Galaxy contains a ‘trap’ that concentrates some of the highest-energy cosmic rays, according to a new analysis of data...

Artist’s impression of two hypervelocity stars speeding from the center of the Milky Way to its outskirts. Image credit: ESA / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Gaia Satellite Spots Six Hypervelocity Stars

Jul 2, 2017 by News Staff

With the help of an artificial neural network, ESA’s Gaia satellite spotted six hypervelocity stars — stars whose velocity in the rest frame of...

This artist’s impression shows our Milky Way Galaxy as it may have appeared 6 million years ago during a phase of quasar-like activity. Outside of that bubble, a pervasive ‘fog’ of million-degree gas might account for the galaxy’s missing matter of 130 billion solar masses. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick / CfA.

Milky Way Galaxy Underwent Brief Period of Quasar-Like Activity 6 Million Years Ago

Aug 30, 2016 by News Staff

Milky Way’s center is currently a quiet place. But it wasn’t always this way – a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters (arXiv.org...

An artist’s impression of the disc of material around Sagittarius A*. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

New Computer Algorithm Could Produce First Black Hole Images

Jun 7, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

An MIT-led team of scientists has developed a new algorithm – named the CHIRP (Continuous High-resolution Image Reconstruction using Patch priors) —...

Artist’s impression of the giant molecular clouds surrounding the Milky Way’s center, bombarded by very high energy protons accelerated in the vicinity of Sagittarius A*. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick / H.E.S.S. Collaboration.

PeVatron: Source of Very-High-Energy Cosmic Rays Discovered at Milky Way’s Center

Mar 17, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System) Observatory, a system of four imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes in Namibia, astronomers have...

The upper two panels of this graphic represent a possible explanation for a recent increase in X-ray flares from Sagittarius A* seen by three X-ray telescopes. As part of a long monitoring campaign, astronomers observed the black hole as a mysterious object called G2 appeared to pass close to the black hole. The timing of G2’s passage could suggest that material from G2 caused the surge in X-ray activity, but it is also possible that this unrelated behavior of Sagittarius A*. The bottom panel is a view of the region around the black hole where red, green, and blue represent low, medium, and high-energy X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Sagittarius A* itself is not visible in this image, but is embedded in the white dot at the end of the arrow. Image credit: NASA / CXC / MPE / G.Ponti et al. / M.Weiss.

X-Ray Observations of Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole Reveal Unusual Activity

Sep 24, 2015 by News Staff

A long monitoring campaign of the Milky Way’s black hole, called Sagittarius A*, has revealed some unusual activity. Typically relatively quiet, the...

X-ray view of the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy. This image was put together in a new study by compiling all observations of this region that were performed with ESA’s XMM-Newton, adding up to over one month of monitoring in total. The image combines data collected at energies from 0.5 to 2 keV (shown in red), 2 to 4.5 keV (shown in green) and 4.5 to 12 keV (shown in blue). It spans about 2.5 degrees across, equivalent to about 1,000 light-years. Image credit: ESA / XMM-Newton / G. Ponti et al.

XMM-Newton Snaps Stunning X-ray Portraits of Milky Way’s Central Region

Aug 22, 2015 by News Staff

New images from ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory reveal some of the most intense processes taking place at the hearth of our Milky Way Galaxy. X-ray...

This composite image shows the motion of the dusty cloud G2 as it closes in, and then passes, Sagittarius A* - the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Image credit: A. Eckart / ESO.

G2: Astronomers Observe Mysterious Dusty Cloud at Milky Way’s Center

Mar 29, 2015 by News Staff

A group of astronomers headed by Dr Andreas Eckart from the University of Cologne, Germany, has made the best observations so far of a dusty red object...

This image shows the supermassive black hole Sgr A* and the region around it. The inset shows Sgr A* and G2. Image credit: NASA / CXC / MIT / F.K. Baganoff et al. / E. Slawik / G. Witzel et al.

Scientists Solve Mystery of Strange Object at Milky Way Galaxy’s Center

Nov 4, 2014 by News Staff

A dusty red object at the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy called G2 is a pair of binary stars that merged together, according to a team of researchers led...

A jet from the supermassive black hole in the center of Milky Way Galaxy. Image credit: X-ray – NASA / CXC / UCLA / Z. Li et al; radio – NRAO / VLA.

Chandra Captures Jet from Supermassive Black Hole in Milky Way’s Center

Nov 21, 2013 by News Staff

Astronomers used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Very Large Array radio telescope to detect a jet from Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*),...

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