The first photo of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way announced that three teachers from Peking University participated in depth

On the evening of May 12, Beijing time, at a simultaneous press conference around the world, astronomers showed the first photo of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky W.

Figure 1: First image of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way (courtesy of the EHT Collaboration)

This is the first image of the supermassive black hole Sgr A* at the center of the Milky Way, and the first direct visual evidence that the black hole actually exis.

Because black holes don't emit light, we can't see the black hole itself, but the glowing gas that orbits signals its presence: a faint central region (called a shadow) surrounded by a bright ri.

This is a long-awaited portrait of the massive object at the center of the Milky W.

"We were amazed that the size of the ring matched the predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity , " said EHT project scientist Geoffrey Bower from the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysi.

Because the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is 27,000 light-years away, it looks about the size of a doughnut on the moon 380,000 kilometers away from Ear.

This is another major breakthrough after the EHT Collaboration released the first black hole photo of mankind in 2019, capturing the central black hole (M87*) located in the more distant galaxy M8

Although the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is more than 1,500 times smaller and more than 1,500 times lighter than M87*, the two black holes look remarkably similar ^[2]

Even though Sgr A* is closer to us, this result was much harder to come by than M8

The researchers had to develop new and sophisticated tools to account for the motion of gases around Sgr .

This was made possible by the ingenuity of the EHT Collaboration, which has assembled more than 300 researchers from 80 research institutions around the wor.

Figure 2: The first image of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way was made this way (Courtesy of the EHT Collaboration)

The EHT collaboration team will combine images taken from SgrA*'s 2017 EHT observations into a final image of the supermassive black hole SgrA* at the center of the Milky W.

This final photo was generated by averaging thousands of images obtained using different computational methods, all of which accurately fit the EHT da.

The above set of thousands of different images can be divided into four subsets based on their similar characteristi.

The histogram shows the relative number of images belonging to each subs.

Sun He was deeply involved in the development of related image processing software and the analysis of galactic center black hole data during his work at Calte.

"The imaging of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way is not only a major scientific discovery, but also represents a huge advance in engineering technology," Sun He sa.

Intelligence has endless possibilities in scientific imagi.

"

Scientists are especially excited about finally getting images of two black holes of different sizes, which would allow for their controlled studi.

They have begun to use the new data to test related theories and models of the behavior of gas around supermassive black hol.

This process is not fully understood, but is thought to play a key role in the formation and evolution of galaxi.

"Now we can study the difference between these two supermassive black holes to gain new clues that are valuable for understanding this important process," said EHT scientist Keiichi Asada from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysi.

A photo of a black hole with a mass difference of more than 1,500 times, compared to the past, we will be able to further examine gravity in extreme environmen.

"

Shao Lijing, who participated in the collaborative research on black hole theory and gravitational testing of the EHT collaboration group, added: "Einstein's general theory of relativity is a very beautiful physical theo.

It predicts that all black holes are similar in mathematical structure, It is an unusually simple four-dimensional space-time region, which has nothing to do with the mass of the black ho.

The observation and experimental exploration of this 'simple thing' is itself an aesthetic enjoyme.

"

EHT has not stopped its observational research: it just completed a joint observation involving more telescopes in March of this ye.

Continued expansion and technological innovation of the EHT will allow scientists to share more compelling pictures, including black hole "movies" in the near futu.

"The exploration of the physics of galactic black holes not only allows us to better understand the structure and evolution of galaxies in astronomy, but also the feedback of surrounding stars and gas, and it is also a beneficial exploration of the basic laws of physics, which is of great significan.

" He Zishan In conclusion, "more and more young researchers in China are able to participate in such historic discoveries, which is inseparable from the country's investment in basic astrono.

"

Notes :

[1] The eight telescopes participating in the 2017 EHT observations are: ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array), APEX (Atacama Pathfinder Experiment Telescope), IRAM 30-meter telescope, JCMT (James Clarke ·Maxwell Telescope), LMT (Large Millimeter Wave Telescope), SMA (Submillimeter Wave Array), SMT (Submillimeter Wave Telescope), SPT (South Pole Telescop.

Over the years, EHT has been joined by new telescopes, including: GLT (Greenland Telescope), NOEMA (Northern Sky Extended Millimeter-Wave Array) and Kitt Peak 12-meter telesco.

[2] Black holes are the only celestial objects we know of whose size is proportional to their ma.

Two black holes that differ by a thousand times in size have a thousand times the same ma.

Link :

EHT website: https://eventhorizontelesco.

org/

Paper link :

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