Multimedia Gallery
Supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy
This is the first image of Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the center 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, an array which links 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.
[Research supported by U.S. National Science Foundation.]
Learn more in the NSF news release Astrophysicists detect first black hole-neutron star mergers. Learn more about black holes in this "Science Matters" story or on NSF's black holes webpage. (Date image taken: 2022; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: May 12, 2022)
Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
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