Check Out the First Photo of This Massive Black Hole!

The supermassive black hole located at the center of our Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), has been photographed for the very first time, and this astrophysical feat helps us better and deeper understand our universe.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) took the photograph of the impressive black hole, which has a diameter of 23.5 million kilometers and a mass 4.3 million times that of our sun. And if Sgr A* is indeed large, it remains relatively small compared to the size of the Milky Way which is 100,000 light-years wide by 1,000 light-years thick.

Sgr A* – pronounced Sagittarius A star – was discovered in 2008 by Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez. The image taken by EHT in submillimeter radio waves showed Sgr A* eating any hydrogen gas available. There are radio telescopes in the South Pole, the United States, Mexico, and Chile. They all look at the same target at the same time, collecting data in different formats, acting like a unified large telescope that magnifies distant and dim objects. The same technology captured the event horizon – the boundary of a black hole from which no radiation, including light, can escape – of a black hole in Messier 87, but since Sgr A* is much smaller, the captured image is an even bigger technological breakthrough.