The black hole, called Sagittarius A, is the second black hole ever photographed. This unique work was accomplished through the same international cooperation mechanism that relied on the Event Horizon Telescope, which in 2019 revealed the first-ever image of a black hole at the heart of another galaxy.
At a press conference in Washington, astronomer Ferial Ozil praised what she called “the first direct image of the beautiful giant in the center of our galaxy,” showing a glowing ring in red, yellow and white around a darker and darker center.
The black hole is 4 million times more massive than the Sun, and is located 26,000 light years from Earth. (A light year is a measure of distance, equal to 9.5 trillion kilometers.)
Black holes are objects of extraordinary density that have such immense gravity that not even light can escape them, making them very difficult to observe.
The image was acquired using the Event Horizon Telescope’s global network of observatories, which work collectively to monitor radio sources associated with black holes.
It showed a ring of light – intermittent super-hot matter and radiation circling at tremendous speed at the edge of the event horizon – around a dark region that represented the actual black hole. This is called a black hole’s shadow or silhouette.
Imaging it was complicated by its dynamic environment, which includes gas swirls.
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy containing at least 100 billion stars. Viewed from above or below, it resembles a rotating fan, with our sun located on one of the spiral arms and Sagittarius A in the center.