New image reveals magnetic field around Milky Way’s black hole

A new image of the black hole that lies at the center of our Milky Way galaxy shows that it is surrounded by a strong, twisting magnetic field.

A striking new image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy has revealed the strong magnetic field that surrounds it, twisting and turning like a spiral.

It’s a never-before-seen view of Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A*), the immense black hole at the Milky Way’s core that gobbles up nearby light and matter.

The image suggests there are structural similarities between this black hole and one at the heart of a galaxy called M87. That black hole — the first ever imaged — is more than 1,000 times larger than Sagittarius A*, but both appear to have powerful, organized magnetic fields.

It’s a clue that the pattern may be common to many or all black holes, according to the scientists behind the image, whose findings were published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“We’ve learned that strong and ordered magnetic fields are critical to how black holes interact with the gas and matter around them,” a co-leader of the research, Sara Issaoun, the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program’s Einstein fellow, said in a statement.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/image-black-hole-milky-way-magnetic-field-rcna145331

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