- Scientists have provided the first confirmation that what's at the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole.
- The discovery caught the interaction of gasses and a small star spinning around the mysterious object.
- This is thought to be compelling proof of the black hole's central role in a galaxy.
At the center of the Milky Way, about 25,000 light years away, is a faint source of radio noise. It's huge, estimated to weigh the equivalent of the 4.14 million suns. Astronomers have long suspected it's a supermassive black hole, and they've named it "Sagittarius A*." This week, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced that an international collaboration led by Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has collected the most definitive proof that this is exactly what Sagittarius A* is.
While astronomers can't directly observe a black hole — light doesn't escape it — they might, however, be able to see some of what goes on around one. Genzel and other scientists across the globe collected information regarding a small star called "S2" and the belt of gas, or accretion disc, that spin around Sagittarius A*. It's in the interaction between the two that the new discovery lies, and it was made possible by a breakthrough in imaging.
The imaging breakthrough
Photo credit: MPE/GRAVITY team
The ESO has a four-telescope array, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the Paranal Observatory, rising 2635 meters above sea level in Chile's Atacama Desert. The amazing device that ultimately allowed the team to confirm Sagittarius A*'s identity leverages the Paranal telescopes. It's called "GRAVITY," and it combines all four in a single interferometer that has the resolution of a single mirror resolution of a single mirror 130 meters in diameter. "All of the sudden, we can see 1,000 times fainter than before," said Genzel when GRAVITY went into use.
S2 and the redshift
Image source: ESO/MPE/S. Gillessen
Every 16 years, a young blue star dubbed "S2" or S-02"completes an elongated orbit that brings it perilously close to Sagittarius A*, about 11 billion miles.
Many scientists feel that black holes — of which Einstein himself was unconvinced — are predicted by general relativity. (They were only finally confirmed a couple of years back when two black holes collided.) Einstein's theory, though, also predicts that if S2 is indeed orbiting a black hole, the speed of the light waves bouncing off it when it draws Sagittarius A*near should slow down, shifting the light it reflects to a more reddish hue.
In July of this year, Genzel's team announced that they had observed via GRAVITY the center of the Milky Way, and had seen the predicted redshift, allowing them to pinpoint S2's closest approach to Sagittarius A*. New York Times reports that as the results were being read off at the Munich announcement, the room broke out into applause.
Accretion disc flares
Also spinning around Sagittarius A* is an accretion disc that travels at nearly 30 percent the speed of light, zooming 150 million miles around the object every 45 minutes. According to relativity, whenever S2 — or any hot object — reaches its innermost, or stable, orbit, bits of it should cross the event horizon and be instantly vaporized as they fall into the black hole, sparking brief infrared flares.
Thanks to GRAVITY, the MPE scientists have been able to see that this actually happens at S2's closest fly-by. "GRAVITY's tremendous sensitivity has allowed us to observe the accretion processes in real time in unprecedented detail," another MPR scientist, Oliver Pfuhl, tells ESO. "It's mind-boggling to actually witness material orbiting a massive black hole at 30 percent of the speed of light."
The predicted flares were spotted, actually, as the MPE team was observing S2 in the research that led to July's announcement, though it took until now to prepare supporting materials for publication. "We were closely monitoring S2, and of course we always keep an eye on Sagittarius A*," Pfuhl recalls. "During our observations, we were lucky enough to notice three bright flares from around the black hole — it was a lucky coincidence!"
Now we know what lies at the center of the Milky Way
Image source: ESO
Genzel refers to the discovery of the flares as a "resounding confirmation of the massive black hole paradigm." Astronomers believe that black holes likely lie at the core of other galaxies as well, so this announcement has far-reaching implications. "This always was one of our dream projects but we did not dare to hope that it would become possible so soon," he concludes.
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- Map details dramatic shift from CNN to Fox News over 10-year period
- Does it show the triumph of "fake news" — or, rather, its defeat?
- A closer look at the map's legend allows for more complex analyses
Dramatic and misleading
Image: Reddit / SICResearch
The situation today: CNN pushed back to the edges of the country.
Over the course of no more than a decade, America has radically switched favorites when it comes to cable news networks. As this sequence of maps showing TMAs (Television Market Areas) suggests, CNN is out, Fox News is in.
The maps are certainly dramatic, but also a bit misleading. They nevertheless provide some insight into the state of journalism and the public's attitudes toward the press in the US.
Let's zoom in:
- It's 2008, on the eve of the Obama Era. CNN (blue) dominates the cable news landscape across America. Fox News (red) is an upstart (°1996) with a few regional bastions in the South.
- By 2010, Fox News has broken out of its southern heartland, colonizing markets in the Midwest and the Northwest — and even northern Maine and southern Alaska.
- Two years later, Fox News has lost those two outliers, but has filled up in the middle: it now boasts two large, contiguous blocks in the southeast and northwest, almost touching.
- In 2014, Fox News seems past its prime. The northwestern block has shrunk, the southeastern one has fragmented.
- Energised by Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, Fox News is back with a vengeance. Not only have Maine and Alaska gone from entirely blue to entirely red, so has most of the rest of the U.S. Fox News has plugged the Nebraska Gap: it's no longer possible to walk from coast to coast across CNN territory.
- By 2018, the fortunes from a decade earlier have almost reversed. Fox News rules the roost. CNN clings on to the Pacific Coast, New Mexico, Minnesota and parts of the Northeast — plus a smattering of metropolitan areas in the South and Midwest.
"Frightening map"
Image source: Reddit / SICResearch
This sequence of maps, showing America turning from blue to red, elicited strong reactions on the Reddit forum where it was published last week. For some, the takeover by Fox News illustrates the demise of all that's good and fair about news journalism. Among the comments?
- "The end is near."
- "The idiocracy grows."
- "(It's) like a spreading disease."
- "One of the more frightening maps I've seen."
- "LOL that's what happens when you're fake news!"
- "CNN went down the toilet on quality."
- "A Minecraft YouTuber could beat CNN's numbers."
- "CNN has become more like a high-school production of a news show."
Not a few find fault with both channels, even if not always to the same degree:
- "That anybody considers either of those networks good news sources is troubling."
- "Both leave you understanding less rather than more."
- "This is what happens when you spout bullsh-- for two years straight. People find an alternative — even if it's just different bullsh--."
- "CNN is sh-- but it's nowhere close to the outright bullsh-- and baseless propaganda Fox News spews."
"Old people learning to Google"
Image: Google Trends
CNN vs. Fox News search terms (200!-2018)
But what do the maps actually show? Created by SICResearch, they do show a huge evolution, but not of both cable news networks' audience size (i.e. Nielsen ratings). The dramatic shift is one in Google search trends. In other words, it shows how often people type in "CNN" or "Fox News" when surfing the web. And that does not necessarily reflect the relative popularity of both networks. As some commenters suggest:
- "I can't remember the last time that I've searched for a news channel on Google. Is it really that difficult for people to type 'cnn.com'?"
- "More than anything else, these maps show smart phone proliferation (among older people) more than anything else."
- "This is a map of how old people and rural areas have learned to use Google in the last decade."
- "This is basically a map of people who don't understand how the internet works, and it's no surprise that it leans conservative."
A visual image as strong as this map sequence looks designed to elicit a vehement response — and its lack of context offers viewers little new information to challenge their preconceptions. Like the news itself, cartography pretends to be objective, but always has an agenda of its own, even if just by the selection of its topics.
The trick is not to despair of maps (or news) but to get a good sense of the parameters that are in play. And, as is often the case (with both maps and news), what's left out is at least as significant as what's actually shown.
One important point: while Fox News is the sole major purveyor of news and opinion with a conservative/right-wing slant, CNN has more competition in the center/left part of the spectrum, notably from MSNBC.
Another: the average age of cable news viewers — whether they watch CNN or Fox News — is in the mid-60s. As a result of a shift in generational habits, TV viewing is down across the board. Younger people are more comfortable with a "cafeteria" approach to their news menu, selecting alternative and online sources for their information.
It should also be noted, however, that Fox News, according to Harvard's Nieman Lab, dominates Facebook when it comes to engagement among news outlets.
CNN, Fox and MSNBC
Image: Google Trends
CNN vs. Fox (without the 'News'; may include searches for actual foxes). See MSNBC (in yellow) for comparison
For the record, here are the Nielsen ratings for average daily viewer total for the three main cable news networks, for 2018 (compared to 2017):
- Fox News: 1,425,000 (-5%)
- MSNBC: 994,000 (+12%)
- CNN: 706,000 (-9%)
And according to this recent overview, the top 50 of the most popular websites in the U.S. includes cnn.com in 28th place, and foxnews.com in... 27th place.
The top 5, in descending order, consists of google.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, amazon.com and yahoo.com — the latter being the highest-placed website in the News and Media category.
