The black hole in the Milky Way Galaxy rotates very quickly

The universe is built in such a way that everything in it rotates. From small asteroids to planets, stars and galaxies. This is similar to rotating black holes, and research has shown this for 20 years. It turns out that this type of object coming from the center of the Milky Way galaxy rotates at a very high speed.

At the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*, which was recently “imaged” for the first time. A team of scientists studied radio and X-ray observations of this object. Then it was decided to estimate the rotation and the results obtained were at least very interesting.

Let’s start with the fact that in the theory of general relativity, rotation is measured by the value a. This means that if the black hole has no rotation, then a = 0. However, in the phase of maximum rotation, a = 1. Scientists’ research has shown that In the case of Sagittarius A*, this value ranges between 0.84 and 0.96. What does this mean in practice? Nothing else but that It rotates at a very high speed.

For comparison, the rotation coefficient of the black hole in the galaxy M87 is estimated to be between 0.89 and 0.91. Think this name means something to you? Yes, this is a black hole that has been captured in an image for the first time in history. A huge science event announced in April 2019 was the result of work with the Event Horizon telescope, which is not one observatory, but several located around the world.

Therefore, we already know that the black hole in the Milky Way Galaxy is rotating rapidly. Sagittarius A* is the heart of our galaxy, but none of us want to be there. It is a huge body with an estimated mass of about 4.3 million solar masses and a radius of 0.5 light minutes. This means that it is thirteen times larger than the radius of a star in the solar system. There is a lot of material orbiting the black hole and being sucked in. Anything that gets too close to the center has no chance of escaping. The first “image” of this giant was also taken using the Event Horizon telescope and was taken in 2022.