Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have finally found clear evidence that the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*(Sgr A*), is blowing a hot cosmic wind – something scientists have been hunting for over 50 years.
Recent News
AUI Announces 2026 Scholarship Recipients
Ten high school students have been awarded for academic achievement, community involvement and leadership skills.
NSF NRAO Leads Future of U.S. Radio Astronomy with First Light from Next Generation Very Large Array Prototype
The proposed array’s design will improve on the sensitivity and spatial resolution—with 10 times the effective collecting area and resolution—over the current NSF VLA and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array at the same wavelengths.
ALMA Reveals Cradles of Dense Cores: the Birthplace of Massive Stars
Taiwanese research team used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe a large molecular gas clump — named G33.92+0.11 — where a cluster of massive stars is forming. ALMA revealed, in unprecedented detail, the fine structure of the molecular gas at the center of the region, where two surprisingly large molecular gas arms about 3 light-years across, appear to be spiraling around two massive molecular cores.
These results show that the large molecular arms are indeed the cradles of dense cores, which are current or future birthplaces of massive stars. These results represent a crucial step forward in the understanding of how mass distributes to form both massive cores and massive stars.
Details on this result can be found here.
Contact:
Valeria Foncea
Education and Public Outreach Officer
Joint ALMA Observatory
Santiago, Chile
Tel: +56 2 467 6258
Cell: +56 9 75871963
Email: [email protected]
Masaaki Hiramatsu
Education and Public Outreach Officer, NAOJ Chile
Observatory Tokyo, Japan
Tel: +81 422 34 3630
E-mail: [email protected]
Charles E. Blue
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Tel: +1 434 296 0314
Cell: +1 434.242.9559
E-mail: [email protected]
Richard Hook
Public Information Officer, ESO
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: [email protected]
Recent News
Milky Way’s Black Hole Finally Caught ‘Breathing’
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have finally found clear evidence that the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*(Sgr A*), is blowing a hot cosmic wind – something scientists have been hunting for over 50 years.
AUI Announces 2026 Scholarship Recipients
Ten high school students have been awarded for academic achievement, community involvement and leadership skills.
NSF NRAO Leads Future of U.S. Radio Astronomy with First Light from Next Generation Very Large Array Prototype
The proposed array’s design will improve on the sensitivity and spatial resolution—with 10 times the effective collecting area and resolution—over the current NSF VLA and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array at the same wavelengths.