Judy: For decades, scientists
have believed there is a black
hole at the center of our
galaxy, the milky way.
Yesterday for the first time,
they released a photograph of it
-- an astonishing sight.
Its shadow is surrounded by
light that is being bent by
immense gravity coming from the
black hole.
And it is just about 27,000
light years away from Earth.
Miles o'brien is here to explain
some of the mysteries around all
of this.
Miles, tell us of the
significance of this image.
Miles: It is our black hole.
We've seen a picture of a black
hole before, a picture of a
larger black hole in 1987 and
2019, but this one is at the
center of our galaxy.
While it might look benign,
there is a lot going on.
The gases spinning around the
black hole at impulsively
difficult speeds to comprehend.
It has a mass that is 4 million
times our sun.
Researchers were saying as they
were looking at it, they could
see it moving in minutes time.
They described it as burbling
and gurgling.
It is a crazy place to be.
If we work there, we would be
spaghetti-fied.
It is a mean place in the galaxy
, a tough neighborhood, but
important to who we are.
Judy: How were they able to get
this image in the first place?
Miles: They have a telescope the
size of Earth.
I know that doesn't sound
logical.
They connected eight telescopes
all over the planet in pairs and
made sure they took observations
at exactly the right moment.
Synchronized with atomic clocks.
Then they compiled all of that
data, collated all of that
information, and used an
algorithm to fill in the gaps.
It's kind of like, you can
imagine a piano keyboard with
some keys missing.
If you can fill in enough of the
keys, you can figure out the
tuna.
They figured out the tune.
It is quite in a of engineering.
Judy: For the scientists, what
makes this so fascinating to
them?
Do we worry about Earth getting
sucked into this black hole?
Miles: No, we are in a safe
neighborhood.
Don't worry about that one.
But it is fascinating.
First of all, this is probably
the strongest proof yet of
Einstein's theory of relativity,
which goes back to 1915.
He theorized these things
existed, and for the longest
time we looked and looked and
didn't see them.
1974, scientists found the spot
it was likely to be in now we
can finally see it.
That gives us this amazing
validation of a scientific
theory in addition to being
pretty cool on top of that.
The other thing they found that
was interesting, it matched in
many ways the image of the other
black hole.
It has the same doughnut
pattern.
It tells them that what they saw
initially was not a fluke or
coincidence.
Now they've seen and extorted
nearly big black hole, and they
have seen hours, a more
run-of-the-mill black hole.
Judy: Now that scientists have
this, what is next?
Miles: We've got the selfie,
next is the movie.
They will try to expand the
number of telescopes on the
surface of the Earth so they can
have another opportunity to
image this black hole and others
in greater detail.
Enough detail to capture the
motion, a sickly that the time
exposure was long enough that
the motion around it, the gases
spinning around the black hole
was blurred.
It is like shooting a waterfall
on a time exposure.
With a few more telescopes on
the surface of Earth, they
should be able to freeze the
action and create movies.
Maybe someday, they hope we can
put paired telescopes into
space, which would be much
further apart and create a much
bigger lens virtually, and who
knows what we will find then.
Judy: Miles o'brien, thank you
very much.