Today, more than three years after the release of the first-ever image of a black hole, scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) shared an image of Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star) — the supermassive specimen sitting at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy.
“It is a dream that comes true after decades of work,” said Heino Falcke, an astrophysicist at Radboud University in the Netherlands. “I always knew this day would come, but I never expected it to be so clear and impressive right away.”
The image immediately reveals new information about the Milky Way’s monster. “The major things we found out about Sag A* were: Is the black hole spinning? Yes, it is,” said Sara Issaoun, an astrophysicist and member of the EHT team. “And what is the orientation of the black hole with respect to us? Now we are fairly confident it is pointed more or less face on to us,” with the poles pointing up and down, as though we were viewing it from a spot high above its equator.
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