First-Ever Image of The Black Hole at The Center of The Milky Way Galaxy

It's been a 3 year wait but today astronomers have revealed our first image of the Super Massive Black Hole that holds our Galaxy together , Sagittarius A* .The SMBH itself weighs in at around 4.3 million times the mass of the Sun and sits 25,800 light-years from us and is unhelpfully obscured by dust but now we have the technology to see through that dust to reveal Sagittarius A* in all its gory.

That image at the top of the screen – looking like a glorious blurry orange donut – is the dust around and shadow of Sgr A* itself, seen by humanity for the very first time, thanks to the hard work of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration.

"We were stunned by how well the size of the ring agreed with predictions from Einstein's Theory of General Relativity," said EHT Project Scientist Geoffrey Bower of Academia Sinica in Taipei.

"These unprecedented observations have greatly improved our understanding of what happens at the very center of our galaxy, and offer new insights on how these giant black holes interact with their surroundings."
www.sciencealert.com...

So much cool stuff happening in astronomy right now and in a few weeks Webb will be delivering the goods too.

Out of focus picture.. I am pretty sure Web will give us something much better.
This could be someone taken a picture of their nightlamp

a reply to: Spacespider

Webb is looking outward not inward so it won't be able to see Sagittarius A*.

It's hard to see something that traps all light isn't it?

a reply to: Terpene

Which is why its taken so long but we can see the super heated gas of the Black Hole's accretion disk , the bit in the middle is your Black Hole.

So everything within the gravitational pull of this black hole will be sucked in from the gravitation pull of a hole 4.3 million times our sun? Everything that goes in is squeezed down to the size of a single atom?

this thing will eat stars and planets and spit them out where? another dimension?

originally posted by: putnam6
So everything within the gravitational pull of this black hole will be sucked in from the gravitation pull of a hole 4.3 million times our sun? Everything that goes in is squeezed down to the size of a single atom?

this thing will eat stars and planets and spit them out where? another dimension?

1) Everything that goes in will not have "atoms" . All matter will be reduced to "information" .
2) They will remain there as information (almost nothingness) . No "spitting out" . Unless you count being blasted out as excess energy .

a reply to: gortex

Perhaps a blackhole is a worm moving around on a cellular level which we see as the universe and when it poops out everything it sucked in through its gaping hole we get dark matter.

Maybe.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: Spacespider

Webb is looking outward not inward so it won't be able to see Sagittarius A*.

wrong, the James Webb telescope observes the cosmos in two infrared wavelengths (F210M and F480M) simultaneously.

The telescope is also positioned in a way that would give it an uninterrupted view of Sagittarius A* throughout its cycles of flaring and calm. That’s because Webb will be positioned on a perch around 1 million miles away from Earth at a gravitationally stable point called Lagrangian point 2 (L2).

The L2 orbit ensures that it can stay facing away from the Sun at all points, protecting itself against the light and heat of the star.

JWST’s orbit also keeps the telescope out of the shadows of both the Earth and Moon, allowing it to have an unobstructed view of the universe for the entire duration of its orbit. Meanwhile, the Hubble Space Telescope goes in and out of Earth’s shadow every 90 minutes.

Using multi-wavelength observations of Sagittarius A* by EHT, Webb and other telescopes will help scientists better understand the mechanisms that govern these cosmic beasts.

One thing scientists still do not understand about Sagittarius A* is what sparks its flares, how they peak and later dissipate. This not only helps scientists study black holes, but it will also give them better insight on the Sun and its flares.

a reply to: Spacespider

I stand corrected.

Mandela effect ?

I swear I seen this photo months ago .

So in 2019 they took this on ofthe supermassive behemoth in the galaxy M87 then 3 years later got the one at the center of our galaxy cool !

Read the title and thought it probably looks much the same as the previous image of a black hole. Yep! Just photoshop blurred by 30%.

All that money and time for that, wow amazing.

Here's a very good video on what it is you're seeing in the image, and why it was so difficult to take it:

www.youtube.com...

I used my top secret enchanting tools on the picture, I wonder if those are stars spinning around the center I see..
Perhaps it does something perhaps not.. hard to tell when not knowing how it looks like.

Anyway..

originally posted by: 19Bones79
a reply to: gortex

Perhaps a blackhole is a worm moving around on a cellular level which we see as the universe and when it poops out everything it sucked in through its gaping hole we get dark matter.

Maybe.

Black holes don't suck... they wield gravitational forces like a toilet, then poop it out into a singularity.

Dark matter💩 LOL...

a reply to: imitator

By the looks of the Milky Way we a circling the drain .

a reply to: imitator


🍻🚬

originally posted by: wildespace
Here's a very good video on what it is you're seeing in the image, and why it was so difficult to take it:

www.youtube.com...

Thanks video is an easier to understand visual explanation.
They were doing this VLBI back in the early 1960's with PR, Russia and the UK.
Hardware detection methods probably dated from the multi use Arecibo dish.

Tullio Regge and John A. Wheeler
Phys. Rev. 108, 1063 – Published 15 November 1957

Geometric equations for space time are a little more difficult and not very intuitive.

www.researchgate.net...

Remember the story about the 60's children in the breakaway civilization that were taught that Euclid had poisoned their minds and they would all need to be reeducated to dream in native Riemannian geometry and speak Hopi?

a reply to: Spacespider

Duuude.

That ladt one, I might as well be looking the Abyss dead in it's pretty dragon eyeball (really, reminds me of dragon eyes)