What Did Experts Find Upon Discovering Milky Way's First Ever Black Hole? Researchers to Report Soon!

Three years ago, the world was astonished by the first-ever sight of a black hole. As a consequence, astronomers are ecstatic to share fresh findings of our Milky Way galaxy's center.

On May 12 at 9 a.m. EDT, further details regarding the "groundbreaking" findings on our galaxy will be given. Even though the announcement is two weeks away, the finding is most likely related to the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way.

This giant, known as Sagittarius A*, has been a significant target for the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) since 2017.

High on the Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes, the European Southern Observatory (ESO), together with its international partners, is operating the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — a state-of-the-art telescope to study light from some of the coldest objects in the Universe. This light has wavelengths of around a millimetre, between infrared light and radio waves, and is therefore known as millimetre and submillimetre radiation. ALMA comprises 66 high-precision antennas, spread over distances of up to 16 kilometres, and is the largest ground-based astronomical project in existence. This panorama shows ALMA antennas underneath the arching Milky Way. ALMA plays a key role in the Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-scale array of eight ground-based telescopes designed to capture images of a black hole. P. Horálek/ESO

Milky Way's First Black Hole Found in 2019

Inverse reported that a supermassive black hole weighing 6.5 million solar masses came into focus when the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team revealed its first-ever black hole photograph on April 10, 2019.

We observe a bright ring and a sharp shadow representing an edge of no return in the image, which was meticulously built by 200 researchers from eight telescopes over four nights of study to acquire six petabytes (1 million gigabytes). The black hole creates a dark region in space beyond this barrier, known as the event horizon, where not even light can escape its clutches.

Three years ago today, the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole was unveiled. It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope — a planet-scale array of ground-based radio telescopes that included our @ALMAObs and APEX telescopes.

🔗 https://t.co/HKGF6eG4ru pic.twitter.com/OV93IfAEZ8
— ESO (@ESO) April 10, 2022

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Using a method known as very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI), the astronomers were able to get a reasonably good glimpse at the black hole, according to Republic World. It's a technology that synchronizes telescopes worldwide and use the planet's rotation to create one massive Earth-size telescope. Surprisingly, this technology-enabled for a resolution good enough to read a New York newspaper from a cafe in Paris.

The researchers claimed that they determined the mass of the supermassive black hole by observing the bright region surrounding it. When a black hole is engulfed in a brilliant region, such as a disc of blazing gas, it generates a dark zone akin to a shadow.

First Image of a Black Hole — The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of the supermassive black hole in the centre of Messier 87 and its shadow. EHT Collaboration

Scientists To Find Further Findings

According to Space.com, partners on the Event Horizon Telescope project will stage a series of press briefings to announce the finding, followed by a 90-minute YouTube live event for public queries.

The EHT team has completed their 2022 campaign, which included seven days of distant observations of black holes, galaxies, and quasars (or superbright objects with black holes in the middle.)

It's unclear if this finding is based on observations collected this year, in 2021, or past work by the network, which was forced to take a two-year pause in 2019 and 2020 owing to operational issues and the pandemic.