At the very heart of the Milky Way lies a supermassive black maw called Sagittarius A * . We know about its attribute thanks to collateral method , like keep passing star , but astronomer have work firmly over the past several age to get unmediated observations of it . We are not there yet , but we are really snug .
InThe Astrophysical Journal , researcher report the closest observance of Sagittarius A * ever made . The team looked at a realm with a 36 - million - klick ( 22 - million - mile ) radius , three time the actual wheel spoke of the supermassive black hole . These observations have allowed the researchers to discover the two best models to explicate how the matter around the black maw is distributed .
“ We pop out to see out what the apparent horizon - graduated table structure may expect like , rather than just draw generic finale from the visibilities that we sampled , " moderate author Ru - Sen Lu , from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy , said in astatement . " It is very supporting to see that the fitting of a ring - corresponding structure agrees very well with the information , though we can not except other models , e.g. , a composition of bright spots . ”
These observations were conducted in 2013 using wireless telescope at four different sites . Radio telescope observations can be improve by a proficiency called interferometry . essentially , if you apply remote radio telescopes together , your prototype resolution is relative to their separation . The further apart they are , the better . In 2013 , APEX , which is located in Chile , joined three telescopes from the Northern Hemisphere , and their fuse power delivered this result .
But this is just the beginning . Last class , more scope join this missionary post and astronomers were able to employ them as the singleEvent Horizon Telescope(EHT ) . This was describe after the last seeable surface of a black hole and , thanks to telescopes from Europe to Antarctica , was effectively the size of it of our planet .
“ The results are an important footmark to on-going development of the Event Horizon Telescope ” , say Sheperd Doeleman from the Harvard - Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and director of the EHT project . “ The analytic thinking of new observations , which since 2017 also include ALMA , will bring us another step closer to visualize the black hole in the centre of our Galaxy . ”
The EHT notice Sagittarius A * in April 2017 and researcher are currently busy analyzing the information . Thefirst imageof a supermassive black pickle could be with us very soon .
