The first-ever picture of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole was revealed Thursday, offering the primary direct visible proof of “the gentle giant” that lies at the center of our galaxy.
The photograph, which exhibits an oval-shaped void surrounded by a vivid ring of glowing fuel, is simply the second picture captured of a black hole, and is the primary to offer an in depth glimpse of the immense characteristic, dubbed Sagittarius A*, at the Milky Way’s core.
“For decades, astronomers have wondered what lies at the heart of our galaxy, pulling stars into tight orbits through its immense gravity,” Michael Johnson, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, stated in a press release.
Now, scientists have the primary direct picture that confirms that Sagittarius A* is certainly a black hole.
The analysis was performed by a world workforce of astronomers generally known as the Event Horizon Telescope, which is made up of greater than 300 scientists from 80 completely different establishments world wide.
The findings have been revealed Thursday in a particular subject of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Sagittarius A* is about 27,000 light-years away and is 4 million occasions extra huge than the solar.
The black hole is totally darkish, however the photograph captured a glowing ring round a cloaked center — what astronomers recognized because the black hole’s telltale shadow, stated Feryal Özel, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Arizona and a member of the analysis workforce.
The observations present how black holes “eat,” swallowing close by fuel and bending mild with its highly effective gravity, she added.
“Light escaping from the hot gas swirling around the black hole appears to us as the bright ring,” Özel stated. “Light that is too close to the black hole — close enough to be swallowed by it — eventually crosses its horizon and leaves behind just the dark void in the center.”
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