
It's out there. Astronomers revealed the first fuzzy and blurry captured image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. The black hole - called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* - is only the second one ever to be imaged.
Sharing the image on Twitter, the National Science Foundation of US stated, "Our own black hole! Astronomers have just revealed the 1st image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy using the Event Horizon 'Scope - a planet-scale array of radio telescopes that emerged from decades of NSF support."
The University of Arizona’s Feryal Ozel called the black hole “the gentle giant in the center of our galaxy” while announcing the new image.
The Milky Way black hole is called Sagittarius A(asterisk), near the border of Sagittarius and Scorpius constellations. It is 4 million times more massive than our sun.
This is not the first black hole image. The same group released the first one in 2019 and it was from a galaxy 53 million light-years away. The Milky Way black hole is much closer, about 27,000 light-years away. A light year is 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers).
(With inputs from Associated Press)
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