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
Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart
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00:00 [ music ]
00:03 Visit Chandra's beautiful universe.
00:06 Sagittarius A*
00:09 As the Event Horizon Telescope,
00:12 known as the EHT, collected data
00:15 for its remarkable new image of the Milky Way's
00:18 supermassive black hole, a legion of other telescopes,
00:21 including three NASA X-ray observatories in space,
00:24 was also watching.
00:27 Astronomers are using these observations to learn more
00:30 about how the black hole in the center of the Milky Way
00:33 galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*,
00:36 Sag A* for short, interacts with
00:39 and feeds off its environment some
00:42 27,000 light years from Earth.
00:45 While the EHT observed Sag A* in
00:48 April 2017 to make the new image,
00:51 scientists in the collaboration also peered
00:54 at the same black hole with facilities that detect
00:57 different wavelengths of light.
01:00 In this multi-wavelength observing campaign,
01:03 they assembled X-ray data from NASA's
01:06 Chandra X-ray Observatory, Nuclear Spectroscopic
01:09 Telescope, or NuSTAR, and the
01:12 Neil Gerald Swift Observatory.
01:15 Telescopes outside of NASA involved included
01:18 the East Asian Very Long Baseline Interferometer,
01:21 or VLBI, network that observed radio emission.
01:24 There was also the Global
01:27 3-mm VLBI array, along with
01:30 infrared data from the European Southern Observatory's
01:33 Very Large Telescope in Chile.
01:36 One important goal of this so-called multi-wavelength
01:39 observing campaign was to catch X-ray flares,
01:42 which are thought to be driven by magnetic processes
01:45 similar to those seen on the Sun,
01:48 but tens of millions of times more powerful.
01:51 These flares occur approximately daily within
01:54 the area of sky observed by the EHT,
01:57 a region slightly larger than the event horizon
02:00 of Sagem star, the point of no return
02:03 for matter falling inward.
02:06 Another goal was to gain a critical glimpse of what is
02:09 happening on larger scales.
02:12 While the EHT result shows striking similarities
02:15 between Sagem star and the previous black hole it imaged,
02:18 M87, the wider picture
02:21 is much more complex.
02:24 [music]
02:27 Both of these goals were successfully met.
02:30 The researchers managed to catch X-ray flares,
02:33 or outbursts, from Sagem star during the
02:36 EHT observations, a faint one seen with
02:39 Chandra and Swift, and a moderately bright one seen
02:42 with Chandra and NuSTAR.
02:45 Astronomers have seen X-ray flares with a similar brightness
02:48 to the latter with Chandra, but this is the first time
02:51 that the EHT simultaneously observed Sagem star.
02:54 This offers an extraordinary
02:57 opportunity to identify the responsible
03:00 mechanism using actual images.
03:03 Astronomers were also able to learn more
03:06 about the wider and complex picture of accretion,
03:09 one of the biggest ongoing questions surrounding
03:12 black holes is exactly how they collect,
03:15 ingest, or even expel material orbiting them
03:18 at near light speed in a process known
03:21 as accretion. This process is
03:24 fundamental to the formation and growth of planets,
03:27 stars, and black holes of all sizes
03:30 throughout the universe.
03:33 Scientists will be able to use the data being released today
03:36 to improve and hone their theoretical models
03:39 of how black holes behave and interact with their surroundings.
03:42 They will continue to study this unique
03:45 combination to learn more about Sagem star
03:48 and black holes throughout our universe.
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