The results of this groundbreaking discovery were published Thursday in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “These unprecedented observations have greatly improved our understanding of what happens at the very (center) of our galaxy, and offer new insights on how these giant black holes interact with their surroundings.” “We were stunned by how well the size of the ring agreed with predictions from Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity,” said EHT project scientist Geoffrey Bower from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, in a statement. At this close range, the black hole accelerates matter to close to the speed of light and bends the paths of photons in the warped (space-time).”
“With the (Event Horizon Telescope or EHT) image, we have zoomed in a thousand times closer than these orbits, where the gravity grows a million times stronger. “For decades, astronomers have wondered what lies at the heart of our galaxy, pulling stars into tight orbits through its immense gravity,” Michael Johnson, astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, said in a statement. Astronomers said the black hole is 4 million times more massive than our sun. It’s the first direct observation confirming the presence of the black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, as the beating heart of the Milky Way.īlack holes don’t emit light, but the image shows the shadow of the black hole surrounded by a bright ring, which is light bent by the gravity of the black hole. European Southern Observatory/EHT Collaborationįor the first time, astronomers have captured an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. In addition to other facilities, the EHT network of radio observatories that made this image possible includes the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) in the Atacama Desert in Chile, co-owned and co-operated by ESO is a partner on behalf of its member states in Europe. The image of the Sgr A* black hole is an average of the different images the EHT Collaboration has extracted from its 2017 observations. The new view captures light bent by the powerful gravity of the black hole, which is four million times more massive than our Sun. Although we cannot see the event horizon itself, because it cannot emit light, glowing gas orbiting around the black hole reveals a telltale signature: a dark central region (called a shadow) surrounded by a bright ring-like structure. The telescope is named after the event horizon, the boundary of the black hole beyond which no light can escape. It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array which linked together eight existing radio observatories across the planet to form a single "Earth-sized" virtual telescope. It's the first direct visual evidence of the presence of this black hole. This is the first image of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, with an added black background to fit wider screens.
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