Supermassive black holes located in the centers of galaxies are more than giant vacuum cleaners that swallow everything that gets too close, they are like cosmic engines powered in theory by magnetic fields. For the first time, after decades of theoretical work, astronomers have obtained solid proof of this .
Thus, as scientists had predicted, the global Event Horizon telescope (EHT) network has enabled the detection of magnetic fields just outside the event horizon – the area where matter cannot escape attraction – in the central black hole of our galaxy , the Milky Way, known as Sgr A.
Until now, no one had been able to resolve the existence of these magnetic fields near the event horizon, but thanks to observations at a wavelength of 1.3 millimeters, scientists were able to measure the way in which light is polarized. linearly ; in the case of Sgr A, this light is emitted by electrons spiraling around the magnetic field lines, generating a delimited trace of the magnetic field arrangement. That is, taking into account that Sgr A is located 25,000 light years away (and has 4 million times more mass than the Sun), the experts set the EHT at an arc of about 50 micro-seconds.
The result of the observations determined that the black hole of our galaxy is surrounded by an accretion disk of material in its orbit and despite the fact that some regions show a highly organized structure, the magnetic fields of some areas of the black hole appear with a large dynamism : there is disorder, loops and intertwined spirals. Pure chaos.
The study has been published in the journal Science .
