Astronomers snap first-ever image of supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*
Results were presented today from the EHT project, which in 2019 produced the first-ever image of a supermassive black hole named M87*, clocking in at 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun, at the center of a galaxy 55 million light-years away.
The image revealed today was produced by combining the world's greatest radio telescopes into one Earth-sized camera.
These unprecedented observations have greatly improved our understanding of what happens at the very center of our galaxy, and offer new insights on how giant black holes interact with their surroundings.
It's not only the fact that this black hole is in our home galaxy that makes this announcement so cool.
It's actually an incredibly difficult feat.
Black holes are extremely difficult to image at the best of times, because they are quite literally invisible, absorbing all electromagnetic radiation.
But Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is even trickier to study because it's obscured by a cloud of dust and gas.
For the first time, we have direct evidence that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is a black hole.
We can't see the black hole itself – the dark patch in the center is the shadow of the black hole; around it, hot gas swirls, heated by friction.
This gas gives off radio radiation that we can detect.
Our black hole is about 4.3 million times the mass of our Sun, with an event horizon 25.4 million kilometers in diameter, and is 25,800 light-years away.
Its size is about 52 arcseconds in the sky, trying to image it is like trying to photograph a tennis ball on the Moon.
Since the size of a black hole's shadow is related to its mass, we can use it to confirm that its mass is around 4 million times that of the Sun.
This is exactly in agreement with Einstein's predictions from General Relativity!
Studying the environment around a black hole like Sgr A* or M87* will allow us to conduct new tests of general relativity, hoping to find places where it breaks down.
This can help us try to understand gravity, as well as the role black holes play in our Universe.
Results were presented today from the EHT project, which in 2019 produced the first-ever image of a supermassive black hole named M87*, clocking in at 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun, at the center of a galaxy 55 million light-years away.
The image revealed today was produced by combining the world's greatest radio telescopes into one Earth-sized camera.
These unprecedented observations have greatly improved our understanding of what happens at the very center of our galaxy, and offer new insights on how giant black holes interact with their surroundings.
It's not only the fact that this black hole is in our home galaxy that makes this announcement so cool.
It's actually an incredibly difficult feat.
Black holes are extremely difficult to image at the best of times, because they are quite literally invisible, absorbing all electromagnetic radiation.
But Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is even trickier to study because it's obscured by a cloud of dust and gas.
For the first time, we have direct evidence that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is a black hole.
We can't see the black hole itself – the dark patch in the center is the shadow of the black hole; around it, hot gas swirls, heated by friction.
This gas gives off radio radiation that we can detect.
Our black hole is about 4.3 million times the mass of our Sun, with an event horizon 25.4 million kilometers in diameter, and is 25,800 light-years away.
Its size is about 52 arcseconds in the sky, trying to image it is like trying to photograph a tennis ball on the Moon.
Since the size of a black hole's shadow is related to its mass, we can use it to confirm that its mass is around 4 million times that of the Sun.
This is exactly in agreement with Einstein's predictions from General Relativity!
Studying the environment around a black hole like Sgr A* or M87* will allow us to conduct new tests of general relativity, hoping to find places where it breaks down.
This can help us try to understand gravity, as well as the role black holes play in our Universe.
