![]() ![]() ![]() The GRAVITY instrument which made this work possible combines the light from four telescopes of ESO’s VLT to create a virtual super-telescope 130 metres in diameter, and has already been used to probe the nature of Sagittarius A*.Įarlier this year, GRAVITY and SINFONI, another instrument on the VLT, allowed the same team to accurately measure the close fly-by of the star S2 as it passed through the extreme gravitational field near Sagittarius A*, and for the first time revealed the effects predicted by Einstein’s general relativity in such an extreme environment. These measurements were only possible thanks to international collaboration and state-of-the-art instrumentation. " GRAVITY’s tremendous sensitivity has allowed us to observe the accretion processes in real time in unprecedented detail." " It’s mind-boggling to actually witness material orbiting a massive black hole at 30% of the speed of light," marvelled Oliver Pfuhl, a scientist at the MPE. The closest point to a black hole that material can orbit without being irresistibly drawn inwards by the immense mass is known as the innermost stable orbit, and it is from here that the observed flares originate. While some matter in the accretion disc - the belt of gas orbiting Sagittarius A* at relativistic speeds - can orbit the black hole safely, anything that gets too close is doomed to be pulled beyond the event horizon. The flares originate from material orbiting very close to the black hole’s event horizon - making these the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole. The observed flares provide long-awaited confirmation that the object in the centre of our galaxy is, as has long been assumed, a supermassive black hole. New observations show clumps of gas swirling around at about 30% of the speed of light on a circular orbit just outside its event horizon - the first time material has been observed orbiting close to the point of no return, and the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole.ĮSO’s GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) Interferometer has been used by scientists from a consortium of European institutions, including ESO, to observe flares of infrared radiation coming from the accretion disc around Sagittarius A*, the massive object at the heart of the Milky Way. ESO’s exquisitely sensitive GRAVITY instrument has added further evidence to the long-standing assumption that a supermassive black hole lurks in the centre of the Milky Way. ![]()
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