Milky Way Black Hole Snacks on Hot Gas, Herschel Finds

First Posted: May 08, 2013 04:18 AM EDT
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With the help of far-infrared imaging, ESA's Herschel observatory has seen in detail how the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy snacks on a cloud of hot gas that is orbiting or falling into it.

"Herschel has resolved the far-infrared emission within just 1 light-year of the black hole, making it possible for the first time at these wavelengths to separate emission due to the central cavity from that of the surrounding dense molecular disc," Javier Goicoechea of the Centro de Astrobiología, Spain, and lead author of the paper said in a press statement.

Having a mass that is four million times more than the Sun, the local black hole is located in a region known as Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A*). It lies close to 26,000 light years away from the solar system. Even at this distance, it is much closer to us compared to any other galaxy with an active black hole at its center. Hence it is an ideal natural laboratory to study in detail about the intricate environment around these mysterious objects.

The Milky Way plane is surrounded by a dense, toroidal cloud of gas that is 15 light years in diameter. Its central cavity is mostly occupied with dust and lower density gases such as carbon monoxide, water vapor and hydrogen cyanide. By analyzing these molecules, astronomers have been able to obtain some fundamental properties of the interstellar gas that is surrounding the black hole.

However, astronomers were surprised with the heat of the gas, as it reaches up to 1,000 degree Celsius. Most often, the interstellar gas is just few tens of degrees above the -273 degrees Celsius of absolute zero. The astronomers predict that the heat is triggered due to UV rays from a pack of massive stars that orbit the black hole. They speculate that the heat could be from strong shocks in the highly-magnetized gas present in the area that occur as a result of collisions between gas clouds or high-speed materials that emit from stars and protostars.

"The observations are also consistent with streamers of hot gas speeding towards Sagittarius A*, falling towards the very centre of the Galaxy. Our Galaxy's black hole may be cooking its dinner right in front of Herschel's eyes," Javier Goicoechea of the Centro de Astrobiología, Spain, lead author of the paper reporting the results, said in a press statement.

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