Free Astronomy Magazine

16 JULY-AUGUST 2022 ASTRO PUBLISHING massive object that sits at the very centre of our galaxy. Scientists had previously seen stars orbiting around something invisible, com- pact, and very massive at the centre of the Milky Way. This strongly sug- gested that this object — known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*, pronounced “sadge-ay-star”) — is a black hole, and the image provides the first di- rect visual evidence of it. Although we cannot see the black hole itself, because it is completely by ESO - Bárbara Ferreira The first image of Sagittarius A* T his is the first image of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. It’s the first direct visual evidence of the presence of this black hole. It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array which linked together eight existing radio observatories across the planet to form a single “Earth-sized” virtual telescope. The telescope is named after the event horizon, the boundary of the black hole beyond which no light can escape. [EHT Collaboration] A t simultaneous press confer- ences around the world, in- cluding at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) head- quarters in Germany, astronomers have unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole at the cen- tre of our own Milky Way galaxy. This result provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants, which are thought to reside at the centre of most galaxies. The image was produced by a global research team called the Event Horizon Tele- scope (EHT) Collaboration, using observations from a worldwide net- work of radio telescopes. The image is a long-anticipated look at the