The black hole at the center of the Milky Way is naked… proof of relativity

What you see now is a picture of a black hole in another galaxy three years ago. It has been assumed that there are black holes like this in our galaxy, but this time, an international research team succeeded in actually photographing it.

Reporter Seo Dong-gyun pointed out the meaning of the confirmation of these two black holes.

Unlike optical telescopes, which rely on light, radio telescopes can make more precise observations by combining radio waves collected from multiple units into one.

An international joint research team mobilized eight radio telescopes installed in Chile and Hawaii, USA to observe the center of the Milky Way.

Shall we go together?

Sagittarius can be seen well in Korea on a summer night.

Traveling 27,000 light-years at the speed of light through a space full of stars and gas, it arrives at the center of our galaxy.

There was a black hole, a dark space from which even light could not escape.

It is the second black hole photographed by mankind.

How is it different from the black hole in the M87 galaxy, first observed in 2019?

For comparison, let’s put two black holes on the same line.

The mass and size of the M87 galaxy black hole is 1,500 times that of our own Milky Way.

It’s almost impossible to fit everything on the screen.

Despite this huge difference, it has been confirmed that the structures of the two black holes are almost identical.

The theory of relativity that there must be celestial bodies with great gravitational force in the universe has been proven more clearly than before.

It was believed that other theories could be applied to the M87 black hole alone, but through this observation, it is concluded that the structure of black holes with different sizes cannot be explained other than the theory of relativity.

[손봉원/한국천문연구원 책임연구원 : (상대성 이론의) 궁극적인 원리를 이해하는 것은 결국 우리의 생활에도 큰 변화를 가져오게 됩니다. GPS 위성과 같이 우리에게 정확한 위치와 시각정보를 알려주고….]

Because black holes are closely related to the growth of galaxies, black hole observations and research are the cornerstones of unraveling the history of the universe.

(Video coverage: Park Hyun-cheol, video editing: Choi Eun-jin, CG: Choi Jae-young)