New image reveals that the black hole at the center of our Galaxy is surrounded by strong ‘spiral’ magnetic fields.

The new image, from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), showed for the first time in polarized light a ring of magnetic fields surrounding the black hole Sagittarius A* (Sagittarius A* or, for short, Sgr A*).

“What we see now is that there are strong, twisted and organized magnetic fields near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy,” said Sara Issaoun, from the Harvard Center for Astrophysics and co-leader of the project.

Polarized light images allow astronomers to isolate magnetic field lines.

The masses of supermassive black holes, found at the center of galaxies, are millions, even billions, larger than the sun. It is believed that they appeared very early in the universe, but their creation remains a mystery.

Nothing can escape their gravitational pull, not even light, making them impossible to observe directly.