For years scientists have known that the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun slowly orbits our galaxy's — the Milky Way's — mysterious center.
At the heart of our galaxy is a supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A*, and scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team just revealed the first-ever image of the cosmic giant (pictured above).
Today's historic announcement marks the first time the wider public sees an image of Sgr A*, which "provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and [also] yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants," EHT wrote in a statement.
The EHT team announced the reveal event days ago. The last time they teased a reveal with such fanfare, the organization unveiled the first-ever image of a black hole, showing the world a picture of the black hole M87*.
Now, aside from finally providing overwhelming evidence that Sgr A* exists, the new image also provides evidence for the theory that the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way's center is spinning, and it also allowed the EHT scientists to determine its orientation, showing that it is facing Earth.
More than 300 international scientists, support personnel, and eight radio observatories around the world worked in collaboration to achieve the groundbreaking result.
We finally have the first look at our Milky Way black hole, Sagittarius A*. It’s the dawn of a new era of black hole physics. Credit: EHT Collaboration. #OurBlackHole #SgrABlackHole
— Event Horizon 'Scope (@ehtelescope) May 12, 2022
Link: https://t.co/Ax7ECRVg8A pic.twitter.com/LRWizSYOy9
During a press conference held by the Earth Science Observatory, Dr. Jose L. Gómez, a research scientist at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC) said imaging Sgr A* was significantly harder than imaging M87*, which is over one thousand times larger.
It was "like trying to take a clear picture of a running child at night," Gómez explained.
Though Sgr A* is closer to Earth than M87*, the fact it is significantly smaller means the gas surrounding the black hole rotates at a much faster speed, which resulted in a blurrier image than the one revealed in 2019 of M87*. The EHT team revealed that tens of millions of images taken by its worldwide network of radio telescopes were combined to provide the final image that has today been shared with the world.
"We now want to go on and make movies [of black holes]," said J Anton Zensus, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated regularly as more information is revealed. The Earth Science Observatory press conference can be watched live below.