Sagittarius A*: A stunning view of our galaxy's central supermassive black hole

Newly published research suggests that the first historic image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, is not an accurate representation of the cosmic body. The image was produced in collaboration with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), and several researchers have confirmed that the image depicts Sagittarius A*.

Why is the real situation not shown in the famous shot of Sagittarius A*?

The supermassive black hole in Sagittarius A* appears like a cake glowing with orange light in the famous EHT image above. What we see in the center of the image is the shadow of the black hole surrounded by a bright ring structure formed as a result of matter falling into the black hole. By definition, we cannot see the black hole itself, because the object's gravitational force is so terrible that even light cannot escape beyond the black hole's event horizon. However, the new study claims that the beautiful ring-shaped structure seen in the footage cannot be real.

Instead, their analysis suggests that a supermassive black hole with a mass of more than 4 million suns has an elongated accretion disk — the region where matter falls into the black hole — which is not visible in the image. They argue that part of the stunning episode visible in the recording is nothing more than an artificial effect created during the development of the image. Our image is slightly stretched in the east-west direction, and the eastern half is brighter than the western half.

“We think this shape means that the accretion disk surrounding the black hole is rotating at about 60 percent of the speed of light,” said lead author Miyoshi Makoto, an assistant professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. elf science Quoted from the Scientific News Portal. “Then why did this ring-like image appear?” Miyoshi asks Makoto. “Well, no telescope can take a perfect astronomical image. We assume that the ring image resulted from errors in the EHT imager's analysis, and that part of it was an artifact and not an actual astronomical structure.”