Strong magnetic fields found spiralling at edge of Milky Way’s monster black hole

A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiralling from the edge of the monster black hole lurking at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.

Seen in polarized light for the first time, this new view of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the center of the monstrous Messier 87 (M87) galaxy. For the unversed, Sgr A* is more than a thousand times smaller and less massive than M87's.

These findings suggest that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. The similarity also points to the possibility of a hidden jet in Sgr A*, akin to the one observed in M87.

"The fact that the magnetic field structure of M87* is so similar to that of Sgr A* is significant because it suggests that the physical processes that govern how a black hole feeds and launches a jet might be universal among supermassive black holes, despite differences in mass, size, and surrounding environment. This result allows us to refine our theoretical models and simulations, improving our understanding of how matter is influenced near the event horizon of a black hole," stated Mariafelicia De Laurentis, EHT Deputy Project Scientist and professor at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy.

This marks the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarization, a signature of magnetic fields, near the very edge of Sagittarius A*.

EHT will observe Sgr A* again in April 2024.

"Making a polarized image is like opening the book after you have only seen the cover. Because Sgr A* moves around while we try to take its picture, it was difficult to construct even the unpolarized image," said EHT Project Scientist Geoffrey Bower from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.