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Telltale loops bring news from the Galactic black hole

Analysis of radio emission from matter near the Milky Way’s central black hole sheds light on this previously unobservable region, revealing that the local magnetic field is carried around in complete loops by the matter orbiting the centre.
  1. Anna Ciurlo

    1. Anna Ciurlo is in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

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  2. Mark R. Morris

    1. Mark R. Morris is in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

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The Milky Way, like most galaxies, harbours a supermassive black hole at its centre: the formidable Sagittarius A*, which has a mass that is four million times that of the Sun. The activity of central black holes depends on the rate at which they accrete material to fuel them. When this matter approaches the event horizon, the boundary beyond which it can no longer escape the black hole’s gravitational pull, the characteristics of the inwards migration can reveal certain properties of the black hole, such as the rate and orientation of its spin. Writing in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Wielgus et al.1 report an analysis of emission from Sagittarius A* that they interpret as the signature of a ‘hot spot’ orbiting the black hole at a radius only five times that of its event horizon — offering the potential for probing the innermost region of the accretion flow.

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Nature 612, 406-407 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04353-5

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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