Astronomers are sharing the first images of a supermassive black hole that’s in the center of the Milky Way galaxy called Sagittarius A*.
Scientists think there are black holes in the center of almost all galaxies that trap both matter and light, The Associated Press reported.
Normally it is difficult to get an image of a black hole because light gets bent by gravity as it is pulled into the hole with superheated gas and dust.
Astronomers knew something was there since they had seen stars orbiting some sort of invisible, massive object in the center of the galaxy, CNN reported.
But the teams at Event Horizon Telescope were finally able to get a good shot after previous attempts had found that our galaxy is too “jumpy” to produce a clear picture.
This is the first direct observation that confirms its presence, CNN reported.
The black hole is near the border of the constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpius. It is so massive that it is 4 million times the size of the sun, the AP reported.
Event Horizon Telescope teams released another image of a black hole in 2019. That was from a different galaxy about 53 million light-years away. This one is closer if you can consider 27,000 light-years nearby, especially if you consider that a light-year measures 5.9 trillion miles.
More than 300 researchers from 80 institutions working with eight radio telescopes around the world are on the Event Horizon Telescope team that made the discovery, CNN reported. The telescope is named after the point where no light can escape a black hole.