spacetoday.net: Astronomers release first image of black hole in Milky Way core

Astronomers release first image of black hole in Milky Way core

Posted: Sun, May 15, 2022, 9:22 AM ET (1322 GMT)
Milky Way black hole (EHT Collaboration)

Astronomers released Thursday the first image of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. The image of the black hole, four million times the mass of the sun, was produced by the Event Horizon Telescope, a network of telescopes around the world that produced the first image of the black hole in the galaxy M87 three years ago. Astronomers called the Milky Way's black hole a "gentle giant" that is far less active than the one in M87. The observations of the black hole match predictions made by Einstein's theory of general relativity more than a century ago.