Hot gas bubble swirls around the heart of the Milky Way

Researchers discover a hot spot near the black hole Sagittarius A* with the radio telescope ALMA. A still image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, as seen by the Event Horizon Collaboration (EHT), with an artist's illustration indicating where the modelling of the ALMA data predicts the hot spot to be and its orbit around the black hole. EHT-Kollaboration, ESO/M. Kornmesser (Acknowledgment: M. Wielgus) - There is a black hole in the centre of our Milky Way. In the immediate vicinity of this mass monster called Sagittarius A*, things are turbulent. Now an international group led by Maciek Wielgus from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn has discovered an object that orbits the black hole on a very narrow path in only about 70 minutes. The observation of this hot spot was made with the ALMA telescope facility in the Chilean Andes.