The road to the first image of the black hole at the center of our galaxy

In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration captured the first-ever image of a black hole, and earlier this year, it captured an image of the black hole at the heart of our own Milky Way galaxy.

In an article in Natural Sciences, a leading member of the collaboration—Heino Falcke, Ph.D., of Radboud University Nijmegen—tells the story of the journey that led to the creation of this latest image.

"This was only possible due to a large collaborative effort of scientists and institutions around the world," Dr. Falcke wrote.

With these black hole images, investigators will now be able to test basic predictions of the theory of general relativity and learn about fundamental astrophysical processes that help to shape entire galaxies and even the cosmos.