Scientists have captured the first supermassive image of a black hole at the center of our galaxy.
The image is not only the first time we've seen the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way – known as Sagittarius A* – but it also provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and gives valuable clues about the workings of such giants, which are believed to be at the center of most galaxies.
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Scientists have long suspected that our galaxy is home to such a massive object: stars have been observed orbiting something compact and massive at the center of our Milky Way. While it appeared to behave like a black hole, it was invisible and impossible to confirm.
In the new image, the black hole itself remains invisible because it is completely dark. But the image shows the bright, glowing ring that runs around it, showing the way light bends around the area.
The researchers describe the black hole as “the glue that holds the galaxy together.” “It is key to our understanding of how our Milky Way formed and will evolve in the future,” said Ziri Younsi of University College London, a co-author on the new papers.
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The new image follows the first image of a black hole, released in 2019, which depicted M87*, a much larger example about 55 million light-years away. The new example was created by the same team: the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, which brings together a network of radio telescopes around the world.
The creation of the latest image took five years of work by more than 300 researchers from around the world.
Taking the image was actually much more difficult than the first and required the development of specialized tools to penetrate the swirling gas surrounding the black hole, scientists said.
Now with two examples of black holes, scientists can now study the differences, comparing and contrasting the two examples.
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The two black holes that humanity now has images of are strikingly similar. While M87* is one of the largest black holes in the universe – about 1,000 times larger than our own – and is located in the middle of a very different galaxy, they have very similar structures.
This proves Einstein was right. And it helps us understand what's really going on in the structure of black holes, the researchers say.
The results are described in a series of papers published in a special edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Source of information: independent.co.uk
