The image of the black hole, designated Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short), was released by the astronomers who observed the black hole using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a collaboration of major observatories across the globe.
Residing about 27,000 light-years away from Earth, the black hole was found to be about four million times the mass of the sun.
As the Sgr A is 2,000 times closer to Earth than the black hole in M87, it is a strong target for black hole research. However, the Sgr A is 1,500 times more compact than the M87 black hole, which means that drawing out Sgr A was far more difficult as the gas flow moves faster and changes rapidly.
The EHT used for the research is a virtual super ultra-telescope coordinated by eight radio observatories around the world. Now, to capture a video of the object, engineers are working on improvements in the EHT that is likely to be completed by 2024.
Once the improvements are completed, the EHT will observe the black hole for a few years before converting them into a video.
According to Space.com, Michael Johnson, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said that the next step would be to capture polarised images of the Sgr A* to observe the magnetic field lines being dragged into it.
Scientists also plan to add more radio telescopes to the network in the coming years to increase the resolution, allowing scientists to see smaller details.
The researchers had also attempted to make a movie of the M87* in 2017 using the data from observations. They had developed algorithms to make movies. However, the data was not enough for clear visualization.
