The Discovery of a Large Active Wind from the Milky Way's Central Black Hole
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866911176393228288 |
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| author | Gorski, Mark D. Murchikova, Elena |
| author_facet | Gorski, Mark D. Murchikova, Elena |
| contents | Every large galaxy has a black hole in its center. The interaction between the black hole and their host profoundly shapes galactic evolution and the Universe as a whole. The key feature of this interaction are black hole jets - or more generally winds - which every black hole must have. Despite our Galaxy's central black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), proximity and importance, the active wind from it has eluded scientists for over half a century. Here we report the discovery of a large active wind from Sgr A* using unprecedentedly deep observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). We detect a large conical clearing in the cold molecular gas surrounding Sgr A* that is at least 1 parsec in length and has a 45-degree opening angle. The morphology and energetics of this structure are consistent with active clearing by a hot wind from Sgr A*. This finding resolves the long-standing mystery of the missing wind from Sgr A*, and delivers the most detailed look yet of black hole feeding and feedback processes in our Galactic center. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_10615 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Discovery of a Large Active Wind from the Milky Way's Central Black Hole Gorski, Mark D. Murchikova, Elena Astrophysics of Galaxies Every large galaxy has a black hole in its center. The interaction between the black hole and their host profoundly shapes galactic evolution and the Universe as a whole. The key feature of this interaction are black hole jets - or more generally winds - which every black hole must have. Despite our Galaxy's central black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), proximity and importance, the active wind from it has eluded scientists for over half a century. Here we report the discovery of a large active wind from Sgr A* using unprecedentedly deep observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). We detect a large conical clearing in the cold molecular gas surrounding Sgr A* that is at least 1 parsec in length and has a 45-degree opening angle. The morphology and energetics of this structure are consistent with active clearing by a hot wind from Sgr A*. This finding resolves the long-standing mystery of the missing wind from Sgr A*, and delivers the most detailed look yet of black hole feeding and feedback processes in our Galactic center. |
| title | The Discovery of a Large Active Wind from the Milky Way's Central Black Hole |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10615 |