The black hole in the dark center of the Milky Way galaxy has been studied and talked about for a long time and now there are finally photos of this dark spot in the earth’s galaxy.

Researchers at the Event Horizon Telescope project say they were able to create an image of a black hole by using a network of eight radio telescopes to create “a virtual telescope dish as large as the Earth itself,” the National Science Foundation says.

Black holes have long been a source of public fascination, but they also pose notorious challenges to researchers, mainly because their gravitational fields are so strong that they either bend light or prevent it from escaping entirely. But scientists have been able to detect and study them based on the powerful effects they exert on their surroundings.

In the case of Sgr A*, scientists have previously observed stars orbiting around the Milky Way’s center. Now they have a direct view of what Feryal Özel, a professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Arizona, called the “gentle giant” itself.

We were stunned by how well the size of the ring agreed with predictions from Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity,” said EHT Project Scientist Geoffrey Bower from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taipei. “These unprecedented observations have greatly improved our understanding of what happens at the very centre of our galaxy, and offer new insights on how these giant black holes interact with their surroundings.” The EHT team’s results are being published today in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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