ESO/ESA Data Release: NACO and XMM Observations of the Galactic Centre

Published: 06 Sep 2019
An ALMA image of the area surrounding Sagittarius A*.

Recent observations suggest that the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy is going through a special accretion event. In the framework of the ESA/ESO agreement, coordinated observations with the Very Large Telescope and the XMM-Newton observatory were taken on the night of 31 August 2019. This joint near-infrared and X-ray monitoring effort aims at constraining the physical processes that regulate accretion by supermassive black holes and the subsequent variability in the emission of radiation. To facilitate a prompt and broad exploration of this rich dataset, the ESO data collected with the NACO instrument have been made publicly available at the ESO Science Archive Facility (under Programme ID 2103.B-5061). Further, the XMM-Newton dataset is also publicly available at the XMM-Newton Science Archive.