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This is what Sagittarius A* looks like, the black hole at the center of our galaxy

Three years ago science gave us one of the most surprising images we had seen up to that moment: the first real photograph of a black hole, one of the most impressive and unknown phenomena in the universe, which is not uncommon. Quite the contrary, scientists calculate that the cosmos is full of them.

The first to notice their presence was Albert Einstein, although the distinguished physicist never took them very seriously: Einstein predicted the existence of black holes in the Theory of General Relativity, but he did not believe in them. Before him, other scientists had speculated on similar objects; but it wasn’t until later, long after Einstein had written his equations, that they were confirmed to be out there.

Black holes are currently categorized into different types, by size and creation, and are considered a very common phenomenon in the universe. So much so that every spiral galaxy – but also ellipses and other types – that populate space has at least one of these massive and supermassive black holes at its center. And our galaxy, the Milky Way is no exceptionof course.

Sagittarius A*, abbreviated as Sgr A*, is the black hole located in the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, as well as its gravitational center. Hence, it is a spiral galaxy: it does not rotate because it feels like it, but because a monster like Sgr A*, with an estimated mass of around four million suns, makes it rotate.

Well, from the team responsible for taking the first real photograph of a black hole comes this first image of Sagittarius A*, also made with the Event Horizon Telescopenot by chance, but because it was the new objective of the team: after M87, it was the turn of our Sagittarius A*. The result can be seen in the image at the top of this article.

«We were surprised how well the size of the ring matched the predictions of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.«, explains Geoffrey Bower, one of those responsible for this finding.

As a curiosity, it should be noted that unlike M87, a supermassive black hole located in the Virgo A Galaxy with a mass of 6.5 billion suns, Sagittarius A+ is much smaller, but no less impressive. It’s closer to us and much smaller, yes, but they do look a lot like each other, which is an indication of how these titans of the cosmos “work.”

But even M87 is not one of the largest supermassive black holes detected to date. The largest is known as TON 618 and it is estimated that, eye to data, it has a mass 66,000 million times that of the sun and a size equivalent to a hundred of our solar systems and growing.

After all, a black hole does not stop “eating” everything around it, within its reach. A black hole is essentially a region of space in which a density of mass is concentrated such that it generates a gravitational field from which nothing can escape. Not even light, it used to be said, although the also memorable Stephen Hawking theorized with a type of radiation that he could do it: Hawking radiation.

Going back to Sagittarius A*, we leave you with a video to situate yourself, or rather, to situate yourself with the space colossus without which none of us would be here. Remember that our slar system is located in the Milky Way, but in an arm of it, as if it were a suburb of the big city. Sagittarius A*, on the other hand, is the dark king that everything revolves around.

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