The discoveries of Stephen Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 April 2018) shone light on the darkness of these mysterious astronomical objects, but at the same time raised questions that will continue to trouble scientists for decades to come. His image has remained linked to the field that accounted for the bulk of his work-black holes. The gas is moving almost as fast as the speed of light,' Brown added.He was the last physicist whose unique profile transcended the boundaries of science to become, like Einstein, an icon of popular culture. 'The image shows hot gas swirling around the black hole at the heart of our galaxy. It shows that Einstein was right, once again,' Duncan Brown, a physics professor at Syracuse University, who was not involved in the cosmic photo op, said in a press release. 'Taking a picture of the black hole at the center of our galaxy is an incredible achievement. Einstein's theories about how matter behaves around black holes have consistently passed cosmic tests, and Thursday's headshots of Sagittarius A* are no exception: Einstein even predicted the symmetrical shape that scientists photographed. The event horizon of a black hole allows researchers to witness gravity at its most extreme, thus seeing if Einstein's theory of general relativity holds up. Over the last hundred years, scientists have repeatedly put Einstein's theory of general relativity to the test, trying to find situations or circumstances in which it comes up short. Alain Jocard/Getty ImagesĪ century ago, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of black holes - points in space where gravity is so strong that neither particles nor light can escape from them. 'These unprecedented observations have greatly improved our understanding of what happens at the very center of our galaxy and offer new insights on how these giant black holes interact with their surroundings.'Ī manuscript showing early calculations of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity at Christie's auction house in Paris in 2021.

'We were stunned by how well the ring size agreed with predictions from Einstein's theory of general relativity,' Geoffrey Bower, an EHT collaborator and astronomer at Academia Sinica, in Taipei, said in a statement.

The new postcard from the center of our Milky Way galaxy helps confirm predictions from Einstein's theory of general relativity. The same instrument, called the Event Horizon Telescope, captured the first-ever image of a black hole in 2019.Ī global research team with the Event Horizon Telescope has captured the light around our own supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, revealing its first-ever image. Researchers say the image helps confirm predictions from Einstein's theory of general relativity. Event Horizon Telescope collaborationĪn international team unveiled the first-ever image of the Milky Way's black hole on Thursday. The first image of Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Black hole theory