For half a century, black hole winds were found in the heart of the galaxy.

News from IT House on 7 June, after 50 years of exploration, astronomers finally found evidence that the supermassive black hole horse A* (Sgr A*) at the center of the galaxy would release a strong star wind. This discovery has led to a deeper understanding of the physical patterns around super-mass black holes and the core of the galaxy.

According to information from IT House, the scientific community had made the hypothesis that black holes release energy when they devour material and push the surrounding material out, a phenomenon known as black hole wind. It also exists, except that it consumes extremely few gases and dust, converted into humans, equivalent to one grain of rice per million years.

The difficulty is that scientists have never been able to find evidence of the existence of black hole winds at the heart of the galaxy, which has also caused the mystery to haunt the astronomical world for almost half a century, and now the mystery finally comes to light.

In a statement, Mark Gorski, a Northwestern University researcher and co-lead of the project, said: “Unless the black hole is in an absolute vacuum, it will certainly blow out the star wind in some way, and there is no absolute vacuum in the universe. With the latest observations, we have for the first time been able to get a clear picture of what the star wind left behind. Looking at the data, we're sure: found, and that's what the scientific community has been after for 50 years.”

It has long been known to the scientific community that black holes that are siphoning up can spray large amounts of material, including jets and star winds, out of the country. The pressure generated by the acceleration of the material that falls into a black hole to near the speed of light pushes it away from the material that falls later, and the black hole wind forms. This phenomenon was observed before in the black hole where the devouring material was very active, but it was never found around the extremely low-activity Mansama A*. On the one hand, it consumes very little material, and, on the other hand, from the perspective of the Earth, the whole of the Milky Way has overshadowed it, making it extremely difficult to track the star wind.

Another co-head of the project, Lina Murchikova, a colleague from Northwestern University, stated that for the first time, the research team had detected molecular gases in the immediate vicinity of horse A*, which supplied materials for this super-mass black hole. And that proves that Horse A* and other super-mass black holes are not really different.

Murchikova adds: “The star wind is not very strong, and the wind may change over time. This suggests that the black hole at the heart of our galaxy is not a special case, and that humans are equally common in the universe. To observe it, the line of view must penetrate the Milky Way plate, passing through layers of gas, dust and ionizing substances, and it would be difficult to see it clearly.”

To break these barriers, the research team conducted a study of five years-long in-depth observations of the large millimetre/submillimetre wave array (ALMA) at Toatakama. This array, which is located in the north of Chile, is made up of 66 radio antennas that capture the clearest images of cold molecular gases in approximately 3 light years.

There's a three-year-old cone hole in the image, a discovery that surprised the team. Researchers assume that this hole is formed by high-temperature gases in the black hole wind that sweep through the region: they either push cold gases elsewhere or heat them up.

Gorski explains: “The high-temperature matter from the black hole cannot coexist with the cold gas, either push it away or heat it up. Once the temperature is too high, the already visible cold gas will disappear.”

A * Around the stars, the stars themselves throw material, but the team judges that the energy of the star wind is not enough to carve such a huge hole.

“There is a wide-ranging material gap in the region. We have calculated that the energy needed to form this hole is far beyond the sum of all the stars around it.” Gorski said, "It is clear that energy can only come from this super-mass black hole. And in the form of an empty cone, it points to the black hole."

To further validate the findings, the team took into account observations of the same region by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Chandra X-ray Space Telescope.

“Unusual discoveries need to be supported by hard evidence.” Gorski said, “We first have to rule out the possibility of false images, and X-ray images from the Chandra telescope are perfectly compatible with our data, and the characteristics of molecular gases are fully consistent.”

X-ray images detect X-ray radiation in cold-gas empty areas, further supporting the observations of the ALMA array.

Murchikova, referring to the discovery process, said, “When you first observed a whole new phenomenon, you first reacted not `we found something significant', but `Is my analysis wrong'? It's not until two sets of images are compared."

Research has confirmed that Pony A* is extremely calm compared to active supermassive black holes in bright, volatile regions such as active galaxies, but that it still has the power to release stars. Scientists speculate that the star wind has been blowing for about 20,000 years.

“The vast majority of galaxies in the universe are in a low-activity state for the most part of the time and will only be observed if we enter a period of intense activity.” Murchikova said, “The black hole of active life, though attractive, is not the normal state of black holes. And Horse A* finally allows us to see the shape of the black hole in peace.”

The results were published in the Journal of Astrophysics on 4 June.

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