Scientists unveil image of supermassive black hole

Scientists on Thursday provided the first look at what they called the “gentle giant” lurking at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy, unveiling an image of a supermassive black hole that devours any matter wandering within its gargantuan gravitational pull. The black hole — called Sagittarius A* — is only the second one ever to be imaged. The feat was accomplished by the same Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) international collaboration that in 2019 unveiled the first-ever photo of a black hole — that one residing at the heart of a different galaxy. University of Arizona astronomer Feryal Özel, at a news conference in Washington, hailed “the first direct image of the gentle giant in the center of our galaxy”, showing a glowing ring of red, yellow and white surrounding a darker centre. Sagittarius A* possesses 4 million times the mass of our sun and is located about 26,000 light-years — the distance light travels in a year, 9.5 trillion km — from Earth.