The enormous black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy has been caught on camera for the first time.
Astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration unveiled a picture of the object - known as Sagittarius A* - today.
Located at the center of our galaxy, the black hole is approximately four million times the mass of our Sun and around 40 million miles across.
While that might sound frightening, the enormous void is far enough away from Earth (roughly 26,000 light-years) that it shouldn't ever pose a threat to us.
The EHT collaboration's photo of Saggitarius A* is the first direct visual evidence that there is indeed a black hole lying at the heart of the Milky Way.
It shows a dark, oval-shaped void where the black hole resides surrounded by a glowing ring of super-heated gas, and was published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters on Thursday.
Astronomers at the Event Horizon Telescope also shared the picture on their Twitter account, alongside the caption: "We finally have the first look at our Milky Way black hole, Sagittarius A*."
"It’s the dawn of a new era of black hole physics," they added.
EHT Project Scientist Geoffrey Bower from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taipei spoke in a statement about how the photo would help us better understand our own galaxy.
"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," he said.
The photo of Saggitarius A* is the second picture ever taken of a black hole. The first - also produced by EHT - was released back in 2019, and showed the even larger black hole residing at the heart of the distant galaxy Messier 87.
Sera Markoff - Co-Chair of the EHT Science Council and a professor of theoretical astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam - commented on how remarkably similar the two black holes look. "We have two completely different types of galaxies and two very different black hole masses, but close to the edge of these black holes they look amazingly similar," she said.
