![]() Size comparison of the two black holes imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration: M87*, at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87, and Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), at the centre of the Milky Way. ![]() However, in 2019, the EHT - an organization of more than 200 astronomers from around the world, including Canada - released a historic first photograph of a black hole at the centre of another galaxy, Messier 87 (M87), that showed the shadow of the black hole with its surrounding gas illuminated. ![]() This includes light, which is why they are so notoriously difficult to detect, unless they're interacting with a nearby star. The results were published today in a special issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.īlack holes are relatively small, invisible, extremely dense regions of space with a gravitational field where anything that crosses their threshold - known as the event horizon - gets pulled in, never to return. Observations of stars near the core showed them orbiting something invisible, which suggested a black hole. It has never been seen.Īstronomers using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) have taken the first image of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, named Sagittarius A*.Īstronomers have long speculated about a black hole at our galaxy's centre. ![]() More than 27,000 light-years away, at the heart of our galaxy, lies a supermassive black hole, one that is more than four million times the mass of our sun. ![]()
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