Astronomers capture 1st image of black hole at the center of Milky Way

Sagittarius A captured by global research team using Event Horizon Telescope array
Servet Günerigok

Astronomers on Thursday revealed the first image of the “supermassive black hole” at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

“This result provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants, which are thought to reside at the center of most galaxies,” said the scientists in a release at the headquarters of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany.

The colorized image unveiled Thursday is from the international consortium behind the Event Horizon Telescope, a collection of eight synchronized radio telescopes around the world. Previous efforts had found the black hole in the center of our galaxy too jumpy to get a good picture.

“Although we cannot see the black hole itself, because it is completely dark, glowing gas around it reveals a telltale signature: a dark central region (called a “shadow”) surrounded by a bright ring-like structure,” said the statement.

“The new view captures light bent by the powerful gravity of the black hole, which is four million times more massive than our Sun,” it added.

The breakthrough comes after the EHT team’s 2019 release of the first-ever image of a black hole, called M87*, at the center of the distant Messier 87 galaxy.

The Milky Way black hole is called Sagittarius A*, near the border of Sagittarius and Scorpius constellations. It is 4 million times more massive than our sun.

Astronomers believe nearly all galaxies, including our own, have these giant black holes at their center, where light and matter cannot escape, making it extremely hard to get images of them. Light gets chaotically bent and twisted around by gravity as it gets sucked into the abyss along with superheated gas and dust.

Sagittarius A* is about 27,000 light-years away from Earth.