Astronomers have spotted signs of a ‘hot spot’ orbiting Sagittarius A*, the
The observations were made with ALMA in the Chilean Andes, during a campaign by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration to image black holes. ALMA is — a radio telescope co-owned by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). In April 2017 the EHT linked together eight existing radio telescopes worldwide, including ALMA, resulting in the recently released first-ever image of Sagittarius A*. To calibrate the EHT data, Wielgus and his colleagues, who are members of the EHT Collaboration, used ALMA data recorded simultaneously with the EHT observations of Sagittarius A*. To the research team’s surprise, there were more clues to the nature of the black hole hidden in the ALMA-only measurements.
Using ALMA, astronomers have found a hot bubble of gas that swirls around Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of our galaxy, at 30% of the speed of light.
By chance, some of the observations were done shortly after a burst or flare of X-ray energy was emitted from the center of our galaxy, which was spotted by “Mind-Blowing” Hot Gas Bubble Detected Zipping Around the Milky Way’s