{"id":464120,"date":"2026-06-06T14:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/464120\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T14:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:55:14","slug":"scientists-have-made-a-huge-discovery-at-the-enormous-black-hole-at-the-centre-of-our-galaxy-and-they-found-something-pointing-right-at-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/464120\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists have made a huge discovery at the enormous black hole at the centre of our Galaxy. And they found something pointing right at it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astronomers say they’ve finally seen, for the first time, evidence of a powerful wind blowing from the supermassive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy.<\/p>\n

The Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole is known as Sagittarius A*<\/a>, and the team behind the study say they’ve uncovered the most detailed view yet of how the black hole interacts with and transforms its surrounding environment.<\/p>\n

They say the discovery could provide an answer to one of the biggest mysteries in space science.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, captured by the MeerKAT radio telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford)
\nBlack holes are not just suckers<\/p>\n

Black holes<\/a> may have a reputation for being cosmic vacuum cleaners, sucking up anything that strays to close to their path.<\/p>\n

But it’s well established that black holes also fire out powerful jets of material into space.<\/p>\n

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

That cosmic ‘wind’ had never been detected coming from Sagittarius A*, but now astronomers say they’ve found evidence of it happening.<\/p>\n

\"SectionCredit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Adam Ginsburg (University of Florida), Nazar Budaiev (University of Florida), Taehwa Yoo (University of Florida); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)<\/p>\n

\"AA composite image showing evidence for a wind blowing away from Sagittarius A* the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The white dot in the centre is the black hole. Orange shows data from the Atacama Large Millimeter\/Submillimeter Array, while blue is Chandra X-ray data. A cone-shaped cavity is visible as an absence of cold gas in the ALMA data, filled by hot X-ray-emitting gas in the Chandra data. X-ray: NASA\/CXC\/Northwestern Univ.\/M. Gorski; Radio: ESO\/NAOJ\/NRAO\/ALMA; Image processing: NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/K. Arcand and P. Edmonds<\/p>\n

“Unless a black hole exists in a perfect vacuum, it must blow a wind somehow,\u201d says\u00a0Mark Gorski of Northwestern University in Illinois, USA, who co-led the study.<\/p>\n

“And there is no perfect vacuum in the Universe. With new observations, this is the first time we\u2019ve had a clean enough view to see the wind\u2019s imprint.<\/p>\n

“We looked at the data and said, ‘There it is. There is the thing that everybody\u2019s been looking for for 50 years’.”
\u00a0
“We were the first to show that molecular gas very, very close to the black hole is feeding it,” says\u00a0Elena Murchikova, who co-led the study.<\/p>\n

“The wind is not powerful, and its direction probably wanders with time. It shows that our black hole is not unique, and our place in the universe is not unique.”<\/p>\n

\"AA composite image showing evidence for a wind blowing away from Sagittarius A* the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, in ALMA radio data. Radio: ESO\/NAOJ\/NRAO\/ALMA; Image processing: NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/K. Arcand and P. Edmonds
\nFinding the wind at the Galaxy’s heart<\/p>\n

Why do black holes spew out matter into the cosmos?<\/p>\n

Theoretical physicists say all actively ‘feeding’ black holes should launch powerful outflows, or jets, into space.<\/p>\n

This happens because, as material spirals into a black hole, it moves faster and faster and eventually reaches speeds close to the speed of light<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That creates so much energy, it flings some of the hot, fast-moving material out into space in the form of winds or jets.
\u00a0
Astronomers had spotted evidence of past eruptions from Sagittarius A*, but had never seen it happening in real time.<\/p>\n

That, say the team behind this study, is likely because our Galaxy’s central supermassive black hole is going through a quiet phase and is also difficult to see.<\/p>\n

“To observe our own black hole, we have to look through the plane of our galaxy,” says Murchikova.<\/p>\n

“That means we have to peer through gas, dust and ionised structures \u2013 and you can\u2019t really see through all of that easily.”<\/p>\n

\"AA composite image showing evidence for a wind blowing away from Sagittarius A* the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, in Chandra X-ray data. X-ray: NASA\/CXC\/Northwestern Univ.\/M. Gorski; Image processing: NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/K. Arcand and P. Edmonds
\nA cosmic cone<\/p>\n

The team used five years of deep-sky observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter\/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory in Chile.<\/p>\n

They were able to build the sharpest image ever created of cold molecular gas surrounding the black hole.
\u00a0
The image shows gas within about three lightyears of the black hole \u2013\u00a0a stone’s throw in cosmic terms. Then, with clever image processing, they were able to remove the black hole\u2019s bright radiowave signals.<\/p>\n

The team say their image is 100 times deeper and 80 times sharper than previous maps of the region. It’s even revealed structures that were invisible in previous observations.<\/p>\n

What’s more, it shows a huge cone-shaped cavity that’sdevoid of cold molecular gas.<\/p>\n

According to the team, only hot, energetic wind blowing from the black hole could have created the cavity.<\/p>\n

\"CompositeComposite image of the Milky Way’s centre, using radio data from ALMA and X-ray data from Chandra. Credit: X-ray: NASA\/CXC\/UMass\/D. Wang et al.; radio: ALMA(ESO\/NAOJ\/NRAO)\/S. Longmore et al. Background: ESO\/D. Minniti et al.<\/p>\n

“If you blow hot material from the black hole, it\u2019s not going to want to exit with the cold material,” Gorski says.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s either going to push the cold material out or heat it up. And, if it\u2019s too hot, you will no longer see the cold gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge absence of material. We calculated how much energy was needed to create this cavity.<\/p>\n

“It is more than can be provided by the stars in that area. Basically, there has to be input from the supermassive black hole.<\/p>\n

“And, if you follow the shape of the cone, it\u2019s pointed directly at the black hole.”<\/p>\n

The team used data from NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory to help confirm their results.<\/p>\n

Chandra images showed bright X-ray emissions in the exact same region. And in the same location as the bright X-rays, cone-shaped hollow region could be seen where cold gas was missing.
\u00a0
“Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence,” Gorski says.<\/p>\n

“We 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.”
\u00a0
“When you find something no one has seen before, the first thought that runs through your mind is not ‘Oh my god, we made a discovery,'” Murchikova says.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s ‘Oh my god, what\u2019s wrong with my analysis?’ But when we overlaid our image with the X-ray image, it started to make sense.”<\/p>\n

\"ImageImage of the region near the centre of the Milky Way galaxy showing the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, a chimney and a vent funnelling cosmic material outwards. Captured by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the MeerKAT telescope. Credit: X-ray: NASA\/CXC\/Univ. of Chicago\/S.C. Mackey et al.; Radio: NRF\/SARAO\/MeerKAT; Image Processing: NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/N. Wolk
\nOur quiet, central black hole<\/p>\n

The astrophysicists estimate the wind has been active for at least 20,000 years.<\/p>\n

And they say the discovery confirms that Sagittarius A* is quiet compared to other galaxies\u2019 central supermassive black holes.
\u00a0
“The majority of other galaxies spend most of their lives in a state where they are not particularly active,” Murchikova says.<\/p>\n

“But we can only see them when they are in a fireworks stage. It is very attractive to study black holes when they are in the fireworks stage, but that\u2019s not actually their dominant state.<\/p>\n

“Sgr A* finally gives us a window into the life of a black hole in this quiet state.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers say they’ve finally seen, for the first time, evidence of a powerful wind blowing from the supermassive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-464120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}