Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy

Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by coryfklein on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:04PM (#31356826)

I'm sorry, I am really confused. Didn't we get "the first picture of the black hole at the center of our galaxy" like 2-3 years ago? I definitely remember seeing a nearly identical photo, and lots of press coverage about a particularly young woman who was closely involved in the project. What that something different?

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by ritwikgupta on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:08PM (#31356869)

That image was also captured by the EHT of the supermassive black hole (M87*) at the center of the M87 galaxy. The woman you're thinking of is Dr. Katie Bouman, now faculty at Caltech. She is also listed as an author on this work of imaging Sgr A*.

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by black_puppydog on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:08PM (#31356866)

as crazy as it sounds: that black hole was actually in a different galaxy :)

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by infogulch on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:32PM (#31357287)

Funnily enough, M87* is bigger than Sgr A* by about the same factor than it is farther away (~2000x ?), and these effects mostly cancel out so the effective resolution of each is about the same. They chose to image M87* first because there is less dust/gas obstructing the view through intergalactic space to M87 than through the bulk of the milky way disk.

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by sgregnt on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:08PM (#31356867)

The image from a few years ago, was taken of a blackhole in a different galaxy.

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by synu on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:49PM (#31357584)

That was M87, a different galaxy. Same group of scientists, though.

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by dseGH3FETWJJy on Thursday May 12, 2022 @01:09PM (#31356882)

Nope, that was a black hole in another galaxy- Messier 87

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