First image of black hole at centre of our galaxy

The first ever image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy - The first image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy has been produced by a global team involving UCL researcher Dr Ziri Younsi. The result provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants, which are thought to reside at the centre of most galaxies. The image, produced by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, uses observations from a worldwide network of radio telescopes, and is a long-anticipated look at the massive object that sits at the very centre of our galaxy. Scientists had previously seen stars orbiting around something invisible, compact, and very massive at the centre of the Milky Way. This strongly suggested that this object - known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*, pronounced "sadge-ay-star") - is a black hole, and today's image provides the first direct visual evidence of it. Although we cannot see the black hole itself, because it is completely dark, glowing gas around it reveals a tell-tale signature: a dark central region (called a "shadow") surrounded by a bright ring-like structure. The new view captures light bent by the powerful gravity of the black hole, which is four million times more massive than our Sun.