Quote:
Originally Posted by spin0
AFAIK not yet, I think observations of Sgr A* have been more or less indirect so far. Sgr A* is fainter than expected in X-ray and Chandra needs to have a long exposure time to image it.
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Nope: SgrA* has been imaged in X-rays on
several occasions with
Chandra previously. It was also observed in both X-rays and IR
simultaneously, and the flares were correlated. Though SgrA* is not as bright as we initially expected, it has definitely been seen at numerous wavelengths.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spin0
This is pure speculation of course, but all in all this sounds like the news could be a black hole. And Sgr A* being a probable candidate, because AFAIK other classes of BHs have already been found in Milky Way (stellar & intermediate).
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I think I'll retract my isolated neutron star guess, because of the >50 years comment in the press release. But I'm not convinced it is SgrA*: the case for that being a black hole is iron clad at this point, spanning many wavelengths. Intermediate black holes are a lot more hard to find, so that'd be my new prediction. There have been
a number of observations that have hinted at the existence of an event horizon in various objects, but none have been definitive. So the ">50 years" + 1958 Finkelstein event horizon paper make me definitely lean towards a new observation of an event horizon in some black hole.