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A view of the Milky Way supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* in polarised light

Eso_eso2406a_1024

eso_eso2406a March 27th, 2024

Credit: EHT Collaboration

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, who produced the first ever image of our Milky Way black hole released in 2022, has captured a new view of the massive object at the centre of our Galaxy: how it looks in polarised light. This is the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarisation, a signature of magnetic fields, this close to the edge of Sagittarius A*. This image shows the polarised view of the Milky Way black hole. The lines overlaid on this image mark the orientation of polarisation, which is related to the magnetic field around the shadow of the black hole.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2406a/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Image Details

Image Type: Observation
Object Name: Sagittarius A*
Subject - Milky Way: Galaxy > Component > Central Black Hole

Eso_eso2406a_128

Position Details

Position (ICRS): RA = 17h 45m 40.0s; DEC = -29° 0’ 28.2”
Orientation: North is up
Field of View: 0.0 x 0.0 arcminutes
Constellation: Sagittarius

Color Mapping

	Telescope	Spectral Band	Wavelength
	Event Horizon Telescope (None)	Millimeter (None)	1.3 mm

Spectrum_ir1

Orange

Eso_eso2406a_1280

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ID: eso2406a
Subject Category: B.5.4.6
Subject Name: Sagittarius A*
Credits: EHT Collaboration

Release Date: 2024-03-27T14:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2406a/

Type: Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes

Facility: Event Horizon Telescope
Instrument: None
Color Assignment: Orange

Band: Millimeter
Bandpass: None
Central Wavelength: 1300000

Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID: None
Notes

Coordinate Frame: ICRS
Equinox: J2000
Reference Value: 266.416815837, -29.0078430557
Reference Dimension: 200.0, 200.0

Reference Pixel: 100.5, 100.5
Scale: -1.94444444444e-10, 1.94444444444e-10
Rotation: 0
Coordinate System Projection:: TAN

Quality: Full
FITS Header
Notes

Creator (Curator): European Southern Observatory
URL: https://www.eso.org
Name
Email

Telephone
Address: Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City: Garching bei München
State/Province: None

Postal Code: D-85748
Country: Germany
Rights: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Publisher: European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID: eso
Resource ID: eso2406a

Resource URL: https://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/original/eso2406a.tif
Related Resources

Metadata Date: 2024-03-20T12:09:46+01:00
Metadata Version: 1.1

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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

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NASA’s Universe of Learning materials are based upon work supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The award is part of NASA’s Science Activation program, which strives to further enable NASA science experts and content into the learning environment more effectively and efficiently with learners of all ages.