Astronomers have observed "twisted" magnetic fields spiraling around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way using the Event Horizon Telescope.
Knewz.com has learned that the magnetic fields surrounding the Milky Way black hole are similar to that of the M87* black hole.
Astronomers of the European Southern Observatory announced their observation on Wednesday, March 27, in an official press release.
The image, from the Event Horizon Telescope, shows, for the first time in polarized light, a ring of magnetic fields surrounding the Sagittarius A* black hole, that sits in the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
"What we're seeing now is that there are strong, twisted, and organized magnetic fields near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy," Sara Issaoun, from Harvard's Center for Astrophysics and co-lead of the project, said in a statement, according to CBS News.
According to the outlet, polarized light allows astronomers to isolate the magnetic field lines.
In comparison, the images of the M87*, taken in 2019, and Sagittarius A*, taken in 2022, only captured the "halo of light that is produced by the flow of matter and gas that black holes suck in and eject."
Angelo Ricarte, a member of the Harvard Black Hole Initiative and a co-lead of the project, said in a statement that by "imaging polarized light from hot glowing gas near black holes, we are directly inferring the structure and strength of the magnetic fields that thread the flow of gas and matter that the black hole feeds on and ejects... Polarised light teaches us a lot more about the astrophysics, the properties of the gas, and mechanisms that take place as a black hole feeds."
The press release from the European Southern Observatory mentioned that the magnetic fields captured in the image closely resemble the ones seen surrounding the only other black hole ever imaged, a larger one residing at the center of a nearby galaxy called Messier 87, or M87.
"Seen in polarised light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy has revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes," the official press release read.
"While the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, which is roughly 27 000 light-years away from Earth, is more than a thousand times smaller and less massive than M87’s, the first-ever black hole imaged, the observations revealed that the two look remarkably similar," the press release added.
Based on the observation, Issaoun said, according to the press release, "Along with Sgr A* having a strikingly similar polarisation structure to that seen in the much larger and more powerful M87* black hole, we’ve learned that strong and ordered magnetic fields are critical to how black holes interact with the gas and matter around them."
Mariafelicia De Laurentis, deputy scientist at the EHT and professor at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, weighed in, saying that "since both (black holes) are pointing us toward strong magnetic fields, it suggests that this may be a universal and perhaps fundamental feature of these kinds of systems," according to CBS News.
While this is a groundbreaking observation, the press release from the European Southern Observatory noted that observing black holes in polarized light is not easy, and this is especially true for Sgr A*, ", which is changing so fast that it doesn’t sit still for pictures. Imaging the supermassive black hole requires sophisticated tools above and beyond those previously used for capturing M87*, a much steadier target."
"Because Sgr A* moves around while we try to take its picture, it was difficult to construct even the unpolarised image... We were relieved that polarised imaging was even possible. Some models were far too scrambled and turbulent to construct a polarised image, but Nature was not so cruel," EHT Project Scientist Geoffrey Bower from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, said in the press release.
