Researchers reveal black hole about 27,000 light-years away from Earth

POSTED ON Jun 14, 2022

Raquel Fraga-Encinas is one of 300 researchers in the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, which took the first images of the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. This breakthrough comes after the 2019 release of the first image of a black hole at the center of a more distant galaxy.

Raquel is responsible for modeling and analyzing astronomical observations. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate researching Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

“Here it is! This is the first image of Sagittarius A* captured by the ehtelescope,” Raquel tweeted recently. “Proud to be part of this scientific achievement.”

Although we cannot see the black hole itself, because it is dark, glowing gas around it reveals a telltale signature: a central region (called a “shadow”) surrounded by a bright ring-like structure. The new view captures light bent by the gravity of the black hole, which is four million times more massive than our Sun.

Using observations from a network of telescopes, the global research team of astronomers and astrophysicists was supported by Frontera, the most powerful supercomputer in academia.

Here it is! This is the first image of Sagittarius A* captured by the @ehtelescope. Proud to be part of this scientific achievement 🤩
🇪🇸 Aquí la tenéis, primera imagen de Sagitario A*#OurBlackHole #SgrABlackHole pic.twitter.com/SQiEIsX2tE

— Raquel Fraga-Encinas (@fragaencinas) May 12, 2022

According to the University of Texas at Austin, Frontera is operated by the Texas Advanced Computing Center and is the National Science Foundation’s flagship system for open science. Since 2021, a Large-Scale Community Partnership allocation let EHT-affiliated scientists use nearly 80 million CPU hours on Frontera, UT News said.

The team used Frontera to create the largest-ever simulation library of black holes. By comparing these models with observations, researchers were able to probe the physics of these extreme objects more completely than with either method alone.