a huge “monster” in the heart of the Milky Way

Sagittarius A* black hole Milky Way
This is the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and has been named Sagittarius A*. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

The black hole named Sagittarius A* was discovered in 1974, named after the astronomer Robert Brown. The introduction of the asterisk symbol in the name is not a mistake: in quantum physics an asterisk means an atom in an excited state. Since then, the name of this sign has been used to name black holes.

Going back to Sagittarius A*, It is known that it is a black hole with a mass that is approximately equivalent to 4 million suns, and is located about 26,000 light years from our planet.. Its central position in our galaxy, as well as its gravitational pull, are thought to be essential for billions of stars and planets (including our Solar System) to exist around it.

The first image of this black hole was built by the consortium Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which comprises a network of 8 observatories located in countries such as Spain, Chile, Mexico and the United States, as well as on the Antarctic continent.

This image was made public on Thursday, May 12, and allows us to see the size in great detail (a diameter of about 44 million kilometers). and everything that happens in that space, that is, the “shadow of the hole”, the place where everything is absorbed, and the luminous material that surrounds it, rotating almost at the speed of light and reaching temperatures of the order of millions of degrees.

How was the photograph obtained?

Although Sagittarius A* was discovered nearly half a century ago, a photographic record of this black hole had not been possible until now. since events in that area happen so fast that it took years of data analysis and photo overlays (more than 10 billion images) to be able to minimize the distortion effect and thus obtain a black and white image that has been “highlighted”. ” with some colors to increase the beauty of the composition.

For this photographic record to be possible, it was necessary to synchronize all the telescopes of the EHT in an atomic clock to be able to take several images simultaneously from several points of viewcollecting the data during the year 2017. The observatories captured microwave radiation, which is invisible to the human eye, which shows the shape of the hole 26,000 years ago, this being the time it took for radiation to reach our planet At the speed of light.

the eight telescopes EHT They form a kind of giant “antenna” the diameter of the Earth, that is, approximately 12,700 km.. But without the help of more advanced technology, it would not be possible to create and share an extremely detailed image of this black hole. A series of algorithms fill in the empty parts of the imperfect image, removed by the 8 observation points, in a technique called interferometry.

These types of photographs confirm that the general theory of relativity, formulated by Albert Einstein more than a century ago, is correct.

This technology has been widely used in recent years in the field of Astronomy, to being able to “photograph” other black holes with the same level of definition. These images confirm that the theory of general relativity, formulated by Albert Einstein more than a century ago, is correct, since it can be seen that all black holes behave in the same way, regardless of their size and mass. Thus, the next big hurdle for Physics to overcome is discovering what lies beyond the “shadow of the hole”..

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