If only we could show Copernicus what the actual centre of the galaxy looks like.
Astronomers just shared the first image ever captured of a gargantuan black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, and it's so mind-blowingly big that it could swallow us and our sun many times over.
The black hole is also known as Sagittarius A*, and it's "four million times more massive than our sun," according to a statement provided by Event Horizon Telescope team that spotted it.
An international research team from Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration produced the image using observations from a network of radio telescopes.
Although the image is blurry, before capturing it, scientists were only able to see stars in our galaxy orbiting something "invisible, compact and very massive at the centre of the Milky Way."
We finally have the first look at our Milky Way black hole, Sagittarius A*. It\u2019s the dawn of a new era of black hole physics. Credit: EHT Collaboration. #OurBlackHole #SgrABlackHole \nLink: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/blog/astronomers-reveal-first-image-black-hole-heart-our-galaxy\u00a0\u2026pic.twitter.com/LRWizSYOy9— Event Horizon 'Scope (@Event Horizon 'Scope) 1652360820
The image that's been released doesn't show the actual black hole but rather the ring of glowing gas it produces around it. That's because black holes are so powerful that light cannot escape their pull.
The ring of gas we see in the image is the size of Mercury's orbit around the sun, which is 60 million km or 40 million miles across, reported the BBC.
The black hole itself is 27,000 light-years away from the Earth, so when we look at it from down here, it looks as big as a doughnut on the moon. Basically, we can't really see it.
That's actually good news because it means we aren't close enough to it to be in any real danger of being sucked in.
The Event Horizon Telescope team gathered hours of data using radio observatories in the same way images are captured on a camera using a long exposure time.
It's the second time this team has taken a photo of a black hole, although this one is particularly interesting because it's at the heart of our own galaxy.
"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," said EHT project scientist Geoffrey Bower said in a statement.
"This is in our backyard," professor Heino Falcke, one of the researchers on the project, told the BBC. "If you want to understand black holes and how they work, this is the one that will tell you because we see it in intricate detail."
Thankfully, from what the scientists have observed, the black hole is actually not as ferocious and violent as they had first predicted, reported the Associated Press.
"It turned out to be a gentler, more cooperative black hole than we had simulated," said Feryal Ozel of the University of Arizona. "We love our black hole."
Safe to say, it's a big day for astronomers worldwide!
