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. It’s the first direct visual evidence of the presence of this black hole. 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. The telescope is named after the event horizon, the boundary of the black hole beyond which no light can escape. 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 new view captures light bent by the powerful gravity of the black hole, which is four million times more massive than our Sun. The image of the Sgr A* black hole is an average of the different images the EHT Collaboration has extracted from its 2017 observations. 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.

How Astronomers Captured Images of the Supermassive Black Hole At the Center of Our Milky Way

By Halis Arkan On May 13, 2022

Derek Muller of Veritasium explains how astronomers operating with the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration were capable of seize such incredible pictures of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole that sits on the middle of the Milky Way. This is most effective the second photograph ever taken of a black hollow, the first changed into of M87 in 2019.

This is a photograph of the supermassive black hole on the center of our Milky Way galaxy called Sagittarius A*. The black hollow itself doesn’t emit mild so what we’re seeing is the hot plasma swirling around it. This is most effective the second one photograph of a black hollow ever. It became taken by way of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration…

Muller talks approximately the gap of both black holes and the demanding situations in the back of taking pictures a real photograph of some thing so far from Earth.

…how did they make those pictures of black holes? Well, the first component to know is that they weren’t made with visible light. They have been made using radio waves with a wavelength of 1.Three millimeters. So all the observations have been taken with the aid of radio telescopes which essentially seem like big satellite tv for pc dishes. … A radio telescope works by means of scanning from side to side throughout the sky.

Event Horizon Telescope announced the discovery on May 12, 2022.

Astronomers have unveiled the primary photo of the supermassive black hollow on the centre of our very own Milky Way galaxy. This result provides overwhelming evidence that the item is certainly a black hole and yields precious clues approximately the workings of such giants, which can be thought to live at the centre of maximum galaxies. The image turned into produced by way of a worldwide research group known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, using observations from a worldwide network of radio telescopes.

Here are some extra pics and motion pictures of this brilliant discovery.