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For the first time, astronomers may have imaged the disk of cold gas surrounding the gigantic black hole in the heart of the Milky Way, a new study reveals.
The research could improve knowledge about how black holes develop and influence their environment.
At the heart of most, if not all, galaxies are supermassive black holes millions to billions of times the mass of the sun. These huge structures can have profound effects on the galaxies they call their home country. For example, they can eject jets of matter at a speed close to that of light that can travel across an entire galaxy, possibly shaping the evolution of the galaxy.
Related: The weirdest black holes in the universe
The location of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A.
(Image: © F. Baganoff et al./NASA/CXC/MIT)
In the center of our galaxy is the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A *, often abbreviated Sgr A *. This giant represents about 4 million times the mass of the sun and about 14.6 million miles (23.6 million kilometers) in diameter.
Around Sgr A * spins a ring of debris known as accretion disk. According to the researchers of the new study, the gas contained in this disc undergoes such friction that it can reach 18 million degrees. Previous research had detected X-rays near Sgr A *, probably emitted by this hot gas.
Previous research suggests that Sgr A * was also surrounded by relatively cold gas, with temperatures between about minus 280 ° F and 17,500 ° F (minus 170 ° C and 10,000 ° C). However, the amount of cold gas surrounding Sgr A * remains uncertain.
"If we want to know more about the processes that are important and not about how a black hole is fed, we need to know the environment around the well," senior study author Elena Murchikova said. An astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, told Space.com. "But the intake of cold gas on a black hole has never been studied."
Now, Murchikova and his colleagues suggest that they may have photographed the cold accretion record around Sgr A * for the first time. "This should help us better understand how accretion works on black holes," she said.
Scientists used the Atacama Large Millimeter / Subillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to analyze the center of the Milky Way. Specifically, they focused on the wavelengths of the light emitted by the hot ionized hydrogen gas, which could travel from the heart of the galaxy to the Earth, with very little loss of these light signals en route.
An ALMA image shows cold hydrogen circulating around the supermassive black hole of the Milky Way center, the Sagittarius A *. The red part of the gas moves away from the Earth and the blue part goes to Earth. The reticle shows the location of the black hole.
(Image: © ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO), E.M. Murchikova, NRAO / AUI / NSF, S. Dagnello)
The researchers detected a cold gas disk about 20,000 times the diameter of Sgr A * and estimated that it was about one tenth of Jupiter's mass, about 30 times the mass of the Earth.
Future research should aim at obtaining higher resolution images of cold gas around black holes and how this gas interacts with hot gas around black holes, said Murchikova. "We want to know as much as possible what is going on around a black hole," she said.
Detailed scientists their discoveries online June 5 in the journal Nature.
Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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