Scientists have for the first time been able to photograph the huge black hole at the center of our Milky Way spiral galaxy, 26.000 light-years from Earth.
The announcement of the achievement was made yesterday with simultaneous press conferences in the USA, Chile, Mexico, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and China. It is the first time that the black hole called Sagittarius A* (Sagittarius A*) and located at the center of our galaxy has been photographed.
The achievement was made possible by its use Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which is a large array of radio telescopes that all synchronized together for photography.
The Sagittarius A* black hole is about 26.000 light-years from Earth, has a mass about 4 million times that of the Sun, and is consuming a huge amount of material (dust, gas, and entire stars) pulled by its powerful gravitational pull. Actually neither light it can escape from it and therefore cannot be captured in a photograph, but scientists have managed to capture the ring of gases and other materials that exist around it, before they are absorbed.
In 2019, EHT scientists had discovered the first "photo" of a black hole in the center of another galaxy, Messier 87 (M87), at a distance of 54 million light-years and with a mass about 6,5 billion times that of the Sun.
Scientists are particularly excited to finally have images of two black holes of vastly different sizes, offering an opportunity to compare and contrast and understand how they behave. They have also started using the news data για να δοκιμάσουν θεωρίες και μοντέλα για το πώς συμπεριφέρεται το αέριο γύρω από τις υπερμεγέθεις μαύρες τρύπες. Αυτή η διαδικασία δεν είναι ακόμη πλήρως κατανοητή, αλλά θεωρείται ότι παίζει βασικό ρόλο στη διαμόρφωση του σχηματισμού και της developmentof galaxies.
