News from the black hole Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way? Scientists announce ‘exciting discoveries’ – Corriere.it

next one May 12 It could be a great day in the history of global astronomy. The project event horizon telescope (Eht), in conjunction with European Southern Observatory (Eso), he didn’t want to share too many details, but he already announced that it would be an interesting novelty, compared to the most recent studies of Milky Way, our galaxy. Great enthusiasm for the latest developments in a project that began in 2006, but is making great progress in learning about the most mysterious celestial bodies: black holes. And while details are scarce at the moment, experts have come to realize how close astronomers are to revealing that they’ve captured a picture of the supermassive black hole. Sagittarius A* At the center of the Milky Way for the first time.

International press conference

Announcement with all details will be released on May 12: Information will be shared through a simultaneous press conference (this Link to follow it Live at 4.30 pm Italian timeplus the next live event of the most popular nature) from the headquarters ofESO and Event Horizon Telescope
in Munichwith other events a Washington, Santiago de Chile, Mexico City, Tokyo, and Taipei. Although nothing specific has been reported yet, it is likely that the announcement refers to The most important scientific project Conducted in the past two years, any one on Sagittarius A* (The asterisk is not a typo, it means “star” and is part of the name), because it is located within the constellation Sagittarius, which has been talked about and speculated about for months. Scientists only said that groundbreaking results will be presented at the conference, but the full scope of the discovery remains unclear. The network of radio telescopes has been doing specific research work on this celestial body for years, so it’s possible that the whole news is related to the black hole.

1 / On May 12 at 15:00 CST, ESO and Tweet embed He will hold a press conference to present the results of the new Milky Way from EHT. Media representatives must register before May 9 at 23:59 CEST to participate.

? https://t.co/STzwoeeqqn
credit: EXO pic.twitter.com/8mnwsrpyI8

– ESO (ESO) April 28, 2022

The first picture

On April 10, 2019, it was released to the world The first picture for a black hole, but they differ from those in our galaxy. The cosmic body was at the center of the galaxy Messier 87nickname Messier 87. Three years ago, the first results were related to Data processing Up to that point, plus A picture spread around the world In a few minutes. Magnetic fields around the black hole have been detected, something new that researchers have already defined as exciting. later described as horn pictureHowever, the image is distorted by distortions of spacetime caused by the black hole. The celestial body is seen through a lens, a ring visible at radio frequencies.
But the EHT wasn’t just studying the M87. The group of telescopes used was also observing the massive object in the center of the Milky Way known as Sagittarius A*o Sgr A *. A black hole would have about 4.3 million times the mass of the Sun and only exist 25,000 light years from Earth, which is not an excessive distance from a cosmological point of view. For comparison, the M87 was unveiled 3 years ago about 6 billion times larger and stands at 50 million light years from Earth. Getting an image of Sgr A* is much more difficult than that of M87 because when looking toward the center of a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, there are many gases and cosmic dust that interfere with radio telescopes. That is why it was difficult (so to speak) to get a picture of M87 first, even though it is so far from our planet.

revolution

If astronomers are able to produce a direct picture of the event horizon of Sagittarius A*, this will be a historic moment, which will also allow us to understand new things about our galaxy. The ESO press release promises something revolutionary same wording Which they used before announcing the first direct image of a black hole in 2019. To give a comparison about the difficulty of the search, experts explained that obtaining a direct image of a black hole is as complex as observing a large object 1 millimeter away from a distance of 13,000 km. In a few days we will know what steps forward have made knowing the galaxy in which we humans live.