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A12 science
Saturday 14 May 2022

Astronomers capture 1st image of

Milky Way's huge black hole

"It is the cowardly lion of
black holes," said project
scientist Geoffrey C. Bower
of Taiwan's Academia Si-
nica Institute of Astronomy
and Astrophysics.
Because the black hole "is
on a starvation diet" so little
material is falling into the
center, and that allows as-
tronomers to gaze deeper,
Bower said.
The Milky Way black hole
is called Sagittarius A (with
an asterisk denoting star).
It's near the border of Sagit-
tarius and Scorpius constel-
lations and is 4 million times
more massive than our sun.
Bower said it is probably
more typical of what's at
the center of most galax-
ies, "just sitting there doing
very little."
It is incredibly hot, trillions of
This image released by the Event Horizon Telescope Collabora-
tion, Thursday, May 12, 2022, shows a black hole at the center degrees, Ozel said.
of our Milky Way galaxy. The same telescope group
Associated Press released the first black hole
image in 2019. The picture
By SETH BORENSTEIN the breakthrough along was from a galaxy 53 mil-
WASHINGTON (AP) — The with other astronomers in- lion light-years away that is
world's first image of the volved in the project. The 1,500 times bigger than the
chaotic supermassive picture also confirms Albert one in our galaxy. The Milky
black hole at the center Einstein's general theory of Way black hole is much
of our Milky Way galaxy relativity: The black hole is closer, about 27,000 light-
doesn't portray a vora- precisely the size that Ein- years away. A light year is
cious cosmic destroyer but stein's equations dictate. It 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion
what astronomers Thursday is about the size of the orbit kilometers).
called a "gentle giant" on a of Mercury around our sun. To get the picture, the
near-starvation diet. Black holes gobble up ga- eight telescopes had to
Astronomers believe near- lactic material but Ozel coordinate so closely "in a
ly all galaxies, including said this one is "eating very process similar to everyone
our own, have these giant little." It's the equivalent to shaking hands with every-
black holes at their bus- a person eating a single one else in the room," said
tling and crowded center, grain of rice over millions of astronomer Vincent Fish of
where light and matter years, another astronomer the Massachusetts Institute
cannot escape, making it said. of Technology.
extremely hard to get im- "Pictures of black holes Astronomers worked with
ages of them. Light gets are the hardest thing to data collected in 2017 to
bent and twisted around think about," said astrono- get the new images. The
by gravity as it gets sucked mer Andrea Ghez of the next step is a movie of one
into the abyss along with University of California, Los of those two black holes,
superheated gas and dust. Angeles. She wasn't part maybe both, Fish said.
The colorized image un- of the telescope team bu The project cost nearly $60
veiled Thursday is from an t earned a Nobel Prize for million with $28 million com-
international consortium the discovery of the Milky ing from the U.S. National
behind the Event Hori- Way's black hole in the Science Foundation.
zon Telescope, a collec- 1990s. Even though it is quieter
tion of eight synchronized She said the image of "my than expected, the cen-
radio telescopes around baby" is exactly how it ter of the Milky Way is an
the world. Getting a good should be — an eerie-look- important place to study,
image was a challenge; ing orange-red ring with ut- Ghez said.
previous efforts found the ter blackness in the middle. It's "like an urban down-
black hole too jumpy. Scientists had expected town, everything is more ex-
"It burbled and gurgled as the Milky Way's black hole treme. It's crowded. Things
we looked at it," the Univer- to be more violent, espe- move fast," Ghez said in an
sity of Arizona's Feryal Ozel cially since the only other interview. "We live out in
said. image from another gal- the suburbs (in a spiral arm
She described it as a "gen- axy shows a far bigger and of the galaxy). Things are
tle giant" while announcing more active black hole. calm out here."q