The black hole - called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* - is the second one ever to be imaged. The feat was accomplished by the same Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) international collaboration that in 2019 unveiled the first photo of a black hole - that one residing at the heart of a different galaxy.
University of Arizona astronomer Feryal Özel, at a news conference in Washington, hailed "the first direct image of the gentle giant in the center of our galaxy," showing a glowing ring of red, yellow and white surrounding a darker center.
Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius "A" star) possesses 4 million times the mass of our sun and is located about 26,000 light-years - the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) - from Earth.
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