{"id":490030,"date":"2026-06-09T04:09:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T04:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490030\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T04:09:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T04:09:26","slug":"astronomers-finally-find-milky-ways-missing-black-hole-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490030\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Finally Find Milky Way\u2019s Missing Black Hole Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a 50-year search, astronomers have uncovered evidence that Sagittarius A*<\/a> \u2014 the 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole that resides<\/a> at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy \u2014 is blowing a hot cosmic wind into its surroundings, carving out a giant cavity near the Galaxy\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a><\/p>\n

This image shows the evidence for the wind blowing away from Sagittarius A*: the white dot in the center of the image shows the supermassive black hole; in orange is data from ALMA, mapping the location of cold gas composed of carbon monoxide in the image; in blue is X-ray data from Chandra; a large cone-shaped cavity, visible as an absence of cold gas in the ALMA data, is filled by hot X-ray-emitting gas in the Chandra data. Image credit: NASA \/ CXC \/ UMass \/ Wang et al. \/ ALMA \/ ESO \/ NAOJ \/ NRAO \/ Longmore et al. \/ Minniti et al.<\/p>\n

According to theoretical physics and a long-accepted understanding of galaxies evolution, as black holes consume materials, they should produce wind or jets.<\/p>\n

Even a small amount of gas falling into a black hole should generate enough energy to push material outwards.<\/p>\n

Until now, the wind coming from our own Galaxy\u2019s black hole, Sagittarius A*, had never been seen clearly.<\/p>\n

Using several years of highly detailed observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers mapped cold gas within just a few light\u2011years of the black hole.<\/p>\n

After carefully removing the black hole\u2019s bright radio glow, they uncovered a giant, cone\u2011shaped hole in the cold gas, pointing straight at the black hole \u2014 the unmistakable imprint of a large, hot, active wind launched from Sagittarius A*.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless a black hole exists in a perfect vacuum, it must blow a wind somehow,\u201d said Northwestern University astronomer Dr. Mark Gorski.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there is no perfect vacuum in the Universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith new observations, this is the first time we\u2019ve had a clean enough view to see the wind\u2019s imprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at the data and said, \u2018There it is. There is the thing that everybody\u2019s been looking for for 50 years\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over five years of ALMA observations, Dr. Gorski and his colleague, Dr. Lena Murchikova, mapped emission from carbon monoxide molecules, a classic tracer of cold molecular gas, within only about one parsec (or three light\u2011years) of Sagittarius A*.<\/p>\n

By carefully modeling and subtracting the black hole\u2019s own rapidly varying radio emission, they were able to reveal extremely faint, intricate structures in the surrounding gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were the first to show that molecular gas very, very close to the black hole is feeding it,\u201d said Dr. Murchikova, also of Northwestern University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wind is not powerful, and its direction probably wanders with time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows that our black hole is not unique, and our place in the Universe is not unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

Data from NASA\u2019s Chandra X-Ray Observatory show hot gas filling the same region, confirming that this is a black hole-powered outflow, not something caused by nearby stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cExceptional claims require exceptional evidence,\u201d Dr. Gorski said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to make sure that we weren\u2019t just looking at some sort of imaging artifact. Then, the X-ray image from Chandra just slotted in perfectly. The molecular features lined up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ALMA map is about 100 times deeper and 80 times sharper than previous carbon monoxide images of the region, making it the most sensitive, highest\u2011resolution map of cold gas within one parsec of Sagittarius A* ever obtained.<\/p>\n

The team estimates this wind has been blowing for at least 20,000 years, but it\u2019s relatively gentle compared to the dramatic jets seen in other galaxies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of other galaxies spend most of their lives in a state where they are not particularly active,\u201d Dr. Murchikova said<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we can only see them when they are in a fireworks stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very attractive to study black holes when they are in the fireworks stage, but that\u2019s not actually their dominant state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSagittarius A* finally gives us a window into the life of a black hole in this quiet state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s results<\/a> appear in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Mark D. Gorski & Lena Murchikova. 2026. The Discovery of an Active Wind from the Milky Way\u2019s Central Black Hole. ApJL 1004, L7; doi: 10.3847\/2041-8213\/ae63cf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a 50-year search, astronomers have uncovered evidence that Sagittarius A* \u2014 the 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole that resides…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[40335,4130,210530,67533,27480,99488,7304,12614,61,60,13922,91,210531,99490,49125,82,16474,79799],"class_list":["post-490030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-alma","tag-black-hole","tag-black-hole-wind","tag-carbon-monoxide","tag-chandra","tag-galactic-wind","tag-galaxy","tag-gas","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-milky-way","tag-nasa","tag-nuclear-wind","tag-outflow","tag-sagittarius-a","tag-science","tag-supermassive-black-hole","tag-x-rays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}