Milky Way's Monster Black Hole Data Collected By 'Legion' Of Telescopes

Space.com

The image of supermassive black hole Sagittarius A *  was created using data from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. At the same time several telescopes, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, were doing observations of their own.   Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart

Transcript

00:00music

00:03Visit Chandra's beautiful universe.

00:06Sagittarius A-Star

00:09As the Event Horizon Telescope,

00:12known as the EHT, collected data

00:15for its remarkable new image of the Milky Way's

00:18supermassive black hole, a legion of other telescopes,

00:21including three NASA X-ray observatories in space,

00:24was also watching.

00:27Astronomers are using these observations to learn

00:30more about how the black hole in the center of the Milky Way

00:33galaxy, known as Sagittarius A-Star,

00:36Sag A-Star for short, interacts with

00:39and feeds off its environment some

00:4227,000 light-years from Earth.

00:45While the EHT observed Sag A-Star

00:48in April 2017 to make the new image,

00:51scientists in the collaboration also

00:55with facilities that detect different wavelengths

00:58of light. In this multi-wavelength

01:01observing campaign, they assembled X-ray

01:04data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory,

01:07Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope, or

01:10NuSTAR, and the Neil Gerald Swift Observatory.

01:13Telescopes outside of NASA

01:16involved included the East Asian Very Long

01:19Baseline Interferometer, or VLBI, network

01:22that observed radio emission.

01:25There was also the global 3-mm VLBI

01:28array, along with infrared data from the

01:31European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope

01:34in Chile. One important goal of this

01:37so-called multi-wavelength observing campaign

01:40was to catch X-ray flares, which are thought to be

01:43driven by magnetic processes similar to those seen

01:46on the Sun, but can be tens of millions of times

01:49more powerful. These flares occur

01:52approximately daily within the area of sky

01:55observed by the EHT, a region slightly

01:58larger than the event horizon of Sagittarius

02:01the point of no return for matter falling inward.

02:04Another goal was to gain

02:07a critical glimpse of what is happening on larger

02:10scales. While the EHT result

02:13shows striking similarities between Sagittarius

02:16and the previous black hole it imaged, M87,

02:19the wider picture is much more complex.

02:28Both of these goals were successfully met.

02:31The researchers managed to catch X-ray flares, or

02:34outbursts, from Sag A star during the EHT observations,

02:37a faint one seen with Chandra and Swift,

02:40and a moderately bright one seen with Chandra

02:43Astronomers have seen X-ray

02:46flares with a similar brightness to the latter with Chandra,

02:49but this is the first time that the EHT

02:52simultaneously observed Sag A star.

02:55This offers an extraordinary opportunity

02:58to identify the responsible mechanism

03:01using actual images. Astronomers

03:04were also able to learn more about the wider and

03:07complex picture of accretion, one of the

03:10biggest ongoing questions surrounding black holes

03:13is exactly how they collect, ingest,

03:16or even expel material orbiting them at near

03:19light speed, in a process known as accretion.

03:22This process is fundamental to the

03:25formation and growth of planets, stars,

03:28and black holes of all sizes throughout the universe.

03:31Scientists will be able to

03:34use the data being released today to improve

03:37and hone their theoretical models of how black holes

03:40behave and interact with their surroundings.

03:43They will continue to study this unique combination

03:46to learn more about Sag A star and black holes

03:49throughout our universe.

04:07NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

04:10California Institute of Technology

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