In their new, non-peer-reviewed paper published on arXiven, a duo of astrophysicists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico conclude that radiation coming to Earth from near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way originates from a mass of gas rotating at approximately one-third the speed of light. Live sciences.
The team’s findings may solve the mystery surrounding the central black hole in the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), which has puzzled astronomers for two years.
Gamma-ray bursts were detected around Sagittarius A* for the first time in 2021. However, the team behind the observation knew that the radiation could not come from the supermassive black hole itself.
This is because all black holes are bounded by an event horizon. In general relativity, the event horizon is the boundary of space-time, beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape from a black hole. This means that black holes themselves do not emit radiation, nor do gamma rays Must come from a Sagittarius A* environment.
Other supermassive black holes are known to emit powerful radiation from their immediate surroundings when the action of their gravity creates turbulent conditions in the gas and dust surrounding them, forming a structure called an accretion disk. When black holes feed on this matter, the accretion disk emits light across the electromagnetic spectrum, from low-energy radio waves to high-energy gamma rays.
However, this cannot explain the gamma-ray emission from Sagittarius A*, since the Milky Way’s black hole is surrounded by so little material and feeds so slowly that it resembles someone eating a grain of rice every million years.
said Chris Impey, an astronomer at the University of Arizona.
Using data collected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope between June and December 2022, researchers aim to discover the origin of these gamma rays.
The duo looked for periodic gamma-ray patterns in publicly available Fermi data. They found that the pulsations appear approximately every 76.32 minutes near Sagittarius A*. This period is half the time between the X-ray pulses coming from the vicinity of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, indicating that the two bursts are coherent and likely linked.
The coincidence of the periodicity of multiple wavelengths of X-rays and gamma rays points to a single physical mechanism that creates this
The team writes in the study.
The researchers’ discovery indicates that both gamma rays and X-rays are emitted from a “bubble of gas” orbiting Sagittarius A* at one-third the speed of light, or about 320 million kilometers per hour. This fast-moving piece of matter is thought to emit radiation of multiple wavelengths as it orbits Sagittarius A*, and periodically flares up during its orbit.
This discovery gives scientists a better understanding of the environment surrounding supermassive black holes.
