ROME, MAY 12 – Photographed of the black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and the closest, thanks to the international collaboration Event Horizon Telescope (Eht) and with the Italian contribution of the National Institute of Astrophysics (Inaf), National Institute of Nuclear Physics (Infn), Federico II University of Naples and Cagliari. The image is definitive proof that there is a black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Published in 10 articles in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the result is announced all over the world starting from Germany, with the European Southern Observatory (Eso); in Italy by Inaf, Infn and the two universities. Three years after the first photo of a black hole, that of the galaxy M87, the new image definitively confirms the existence of a black hole at the center of our galaxy: “overwhelming proof”, as the researchers defined it in the press conference organized in Rome: Ciriaco Goddi of the University of Cagliari, Inaf and Infn, Elisabetta Liuzzo Nicola Marchili and Kazi Rygl, all three of the INAF and, in connection, Mariafelicia De Laurentis of the Federico II University of Naples and Infn, and Rocco Lico of Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía and Inaf. Also in this historical shot, the result of the work of more than 300 researchers from 80 institutes around the world that together form the Eht Collaboration, the black hole is not directly visible because it does not emit light: you can see a thick ring of bright gas, some size it would have if it were around the Moon, which surrounds a dark central region called ‘shadow’. An “extraordinary” result, which demonstrates how important international collaboration in the scientific field is and how important it is for Italy to be part of it: this is how the Minister of University and Research, Maria Cristina Messa, commented on the photo. “It is an extraordinary result, the extent of which – she said – will we be able to really realize only with time”. (HANDLE).
(HANDLE)
