Feedback on the Milky Way’s black hole

The fuzzy, bright orange motifs of the cosmic monster lurking at the heart of our galaxy made a big splash yesterday with scientists and space geeks. Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) launched its first collaboration picture The black hole at the center of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A*, is another important scientific milestone.

the group public The first image of a black hole, a distant monster called Messier 87*, was in 2019, and now they’ve brought their telescopes closer to home. Sagittarius A* (called “star A”), a source of radio waves at the center of our galaxy, has long been assumed to be a supermassive black hole. Now, we know for sure.

“The waiting time is over. Learn about the black hole at the center of our galaxy,” Ferial Ozel, EHT Modeling Lead and Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Arizona, ad On Twitter Thursday morning with the hashtag #OurBlackHole.

Astronomers have been waiting for this moment ever since they saw the shadow of M87* in 2019.

Oxford University astrophysicist Becky Smithhurst recorded her live reaction to seeing an image of Sagittarius A* and posted video in youtube. “Oh, my God, look at him,” shrieked Smithhurst. “It’s a lot more crushed than the M87.”

Sagittarius A* is about a thousand times smaller than the M87 black hole, and weighs 4 million times the mass of the Sun. It also looks like a cake, as some astronomers have pointed out through a series of mostly related memes. To Homer Simpson.

Others have chosen to put an astrophysical spin on an old classic.

In the meantime, some scientists aim to show the scale captured in the image. Mark McGreen, Senior Adviser for Science and Exploration at the European Space Agency, I noticed The difference in size between the radius of Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the radius of the black hole in the image.

Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics also felt the need to explain why the image appeared to be blurry. “There is a lot of confusion as to why the image of a black hole appears blurry, but it is actually one of the sharpest images ever. It’s because what you see is so gorgeous, super magnified.” books McDowell in a series of tweets.

With the metaphorical cut-outs settling after the photo’s release, scientists are eager to learn more about these mysterious and mysterious cakes in space.