Scientists find wind blowing from our Milky Way's black hole after half-century search: 'There it is'

After searching for 50 years, astronomers have finally discovered evidence of powerful winds blowing from Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy. The discovery represents a deepening of our understanding of the physics at play both around supermassive black holes and at the heart of the Milky Way. Scientists have long proposed that black holes produce energy as they consume matter that pushes material away from their vicinity, a process which has been dubbed "black hole winds." That even applies to Sgr A* , which exists on a diet of gas and dust so meager For a human, the equivalent would be consuming one grain of rice every million years. The problem is, scientists have been unable to collect evidence of black hole winds blowing through the heart of the Milky Way, resulting in a mystery that has persisted in astronomy for around half a century — that is, until now. "Unless a black hole exists in a perfect vacuum, it must blow a wind somehow. And there is no perfect vacuum in the universe," team co-leader and Northwestern University researcher Mark Gorski said in a statement . "With new observations, this is the first time we’ve had a clean enough view to see the wind's imprint. We looked at the data and said, 'There it is. …