A team of hundreds of astronomers, the Event Horizon Telescope – including Portuguese Hugo Messias, from the ALMA Observatory in Chile – was responsible for Detailing the first image of the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*, located in the center of the Milky Way27,000 light years from Earth.

Scientists already had strong suspicions that it is a black hole, because for a long time they were able to observe stars orbiting something invisible. And compressed into the middle of the galaxy where the Solar System is, this image, revealed Thursday, is the first visual confirmation of that thesis. However, it is important to mention that The image does not show the black hole itself, because it is a celestial body from which light does not escape, but rather the gas that surrounds it.

“Until now, we did not have a direct image to prove that this giant at the center of our galaxy was a black hole. It shows a bright ring around the darkness and the mark of the black hole’s shadow, Ferial Ozil, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona, said during the press conference.

The first image of the black hole was only shown in 2019, in this case in the galaxy Messier 87.more than 50 million light-years away, also thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope.