Galactic giant awakens: Hidden black hole wind discovered after 50 years

• Astronomers have resolved a 50-year mystery concerning Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
• They discovered evidence of 20,000-year-old wind emanating from the black hole, which was previously undetected despite black holes typically producing such outflows.
• The breakthrough was achieved using five years of observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, providing an image 100 times deeper and 80 times sharper than previous maps.
• This enhanced view revealed a massive, cone-shaped hole devoid of gas, which scientists attribute to the hot wind from Sagittarius A*.
• The findings, co-led by astrophysicists Mark Gorski and Elena Murchikova, offer a clearer understanding of the black hole's influence on the cosmos and suggest it is currently in a quieter phase.

IN FULL

Scientists just solved a decades-old mystery about the black hole in the middle of our galaxy