So, Sagittarius A* might not be a black hole at all …

Whereas some data observed in the center of our galaxy is explainable by proposing the existence of a supermassive black hole (which we all know as Sagittarius A*), there are some observable facts which are not explained by this hypothesis. Now a very recent paper proposes something completely different for the center of our Milkyway:


This is in the early stages of peer review, but nonetheless a very interesting theory.
 
I'm glad he made a point of saying that this is just a hypothesis right now, and has a long way to go with evidence. Anton reports on a lot of current papers that present interesting ideas, but a single paper doesn't make for an accepted (or proven) explanation of something. So there should always be that "grain of salt" taken with them, until they gain evidence and thus also gain traction within the scientific community.

Having said that, it's an interesting idea, and I suspect the truth is somewhere in between. There's plenty of evidence for the existence of the black hole itself, so I think it's unlikely that it'll turn out to be a cloud of dark matter instead, but rather it could be a black hole with a cloud of dark matter, or something along those lines. It'll be interesting to see where this leads.
 
All our assumptions regarding the nature of so-called black holes is 99% speculation so far. If proposed object (bigger and less dense) suits the observed facts better, it's definitely worth considering. If there are things happening around Sag A* which don't follow our theories (and they indeed are), it's bad for our theories, not for those things. ;)

Besides, detecting completely theoretical particles that nobody's ever detected is quite popular nowadays. :)
 
I'm glad he made a point of saying that this is just a hypothesis right now,

I'm not even sure it's reached the stage of hypothesis yet, I'm not sure enough research has been done to get it to that stage, it's probably more a proposal or ides. As in, "maybe it's not a black hole, we need to do some research to test this idea/proposal."
 
It always amuses me that it is easier to study black holes in the centre of other galaxies than it is to study Sag A*. We know there's an object of great mass there, we have observed supermassive black holes in other galaxies, so Occam's razor would suggest that Sag A* is a SMBH, but we don't know for sure, and now observation is casting doubts. Any time where existing theories are being cast into doubt is an exciting time for science.
 

Deleted member 115407

D
I feel like this post is one of those: "They couldn't believe what she pulled out of her bag" advertisements.

Can anyone tell me what the punchline is?
 
Anton is one of the most interesting Youtubers I know of, and even though he likes the news, don't we all?

He's also very good at both telling if an article isn't peer-reviewed yet and he's good at providing links to the articles he talks about. In this video he himself expresses caution towards the hypothesis, but it does seem to explain some of the otherwise "unsolvable problems" regarding Sag A*.

Btw. Anyone playing ED knows it is a nonrotating black hole with no accretion disk ;)
 
Btw. Anyone playing ED knows it is a nonrotating black hole with no accretion disk ;)
Except the representation in game is hardly compatible with how the Schwarzschild solution behaves.

On the topic; With the Event horizon telescope having observed a supermassive black hole in a different galaxy directly, the most likely explanation for our own galaxy is still a supermassive black hole.

Even more interesting: The black hole of M87 is so much larger than Sag A* that it appears to have the same angular size in the sky. However, it does not have the same amount of foreground, making it easier to see.
 
Back
Top Bottom