Supermassive Football: Milky Way Black Hole Spinning Fast Enough to Warp Spacetime Into Oval Shape, Scientists Say

The Milky Way galaxy’s supermassive black hole is taking on an oval-like shape, scientists have discovered.

Knewz.com has learned that scientists were able to discover the change through radio telescopes and X-ray observations of the black hole located 26,000 light years from Earth.

An artist’s illustration of a cross-section of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole near the center of the Milky Way galaxy resembling the shape of an American football. By: Chandra X-Ray Observatory

The supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* or Sgr A*, has been spinning so fast over time that it’s literally warping spacetime into the shape of football, according to researchers.

They published their findings in the January issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in a paper titled, “New black hole spin values for Sagittarius A* obtained with the outflow method.”

Up until now, Sgr A*’s spin rate has been difficult to pin down, given that it is a 4.1-million-solar-mass black hole. Now, a group of astronomers has used what they term an outflow method – how the material from the black hole flows away from its center – to measure how many times it spins per second.

According to Space.com: “An outflow from a black hole can come in the form of a magnetically collimated jet of matter that emits copious radio waves. Meanwhile, hot clumps of plasma (ionized gas) produced in the disk of matter around a black hole, and which can then drift away, are hot enough to radiate in X-rays.”

The Milky Way galaxy’s supermassive black hole is literally warping spacetime. By: MEGA

Using archival observations of Sgr A* made with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array of radio telescopes and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the team, led by Ruth Daly of Penn State University’s physics department, measured the angular velocity of Sgr A*to be 60% of the maximum possible value, which is defined by the speed of light – making it spin fast enough to warp spacetime into a flat, oval shape, not unlike a football.

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory stated that black holes have two fundamental properties: their mass (how much they weigh), and their spin (how quickly they rotate). Determining either of these two values tells scientists a great deal about any black hole and how it behaves.

“A spinning black hole is like a rocket on the launch pad,” said Biny Sebastian, a co-author of the study from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. “Once material gets close enough, it’s like someone has fueled the rocket and hit the ‘launch’ button.”

“Our work may help settle the question of how fast our galaxy’s supermassive black hole is spinning,” said Daly. “Our results indicate that Sgr A* is spinning very rapidly, which is interesting and has far reaching implications.”

In the future, if the properties of the matter and the magnetic field strength close to the black hole change, part of the enormous energy of the black hole’s spin could drive more powerful outflows. By: MEGA

According to the observatory, in the future, if the properties of the matter and the magnetic field strength close to the black hole change, “part of the enormous energy of the black hole’s spin could drive more powerful outflows.

“Jets powered and collimated by a galaxy’s spinning central black hole can profoundly affect the gas supply for an entire galaxy, which affects how quickly and even whether stars can form,” said co-author Megan Donahue from Michigan State University.

Co-author Anan Lu from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, said, “We have a special view of Sgr A* because it is the nearest supermassive black hole to us. Although it’s quiet right now, our work shows that in the future it will give an incredibly powerful kick to surrounding matter. That might happen in a thousand or a million years, or it could happen in our lifetimes.”