The James Webb Space Telescope has a terrifying target in our galaxy

While the largest telescope in history is in its final preparations to begin an unprecedented day of scientific observations on July 12, NASA reports that the James Webb Space Telescope in its first year of science alone will cover hundreds of select programs. Well, among its many scientific goals is the study of the monstrous black hole in the Milky Way.

Observing black holes is a real challenge, so far we only have two images. Both images were taken thanks to a global research team called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which uses technology that connects satellite dishes from around the world to create an Earth-sized interferometer.

On April 10, 2019, humans around the world were able to see an image of a black hole for the first time in history, which appeared in the form of a bright ring-like structure with a dark central region: a black shadow. hole. The black hole in the photo is located 55 million light-years from our planet, at the heart of galaxy M87. Three years later, we saw the second one, and it was none other than the A* bow.

Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy. It’s about 25,000 light-years away, while M87 is more than 55 million light-years away, but even so, photographing the hole at the center of our galaxy is tricky. In itself, getting an image of a black hole is a very complicated task, but the job is much more difficult than the M87*, despite the fact that Sagittarius A* is much closer to us.

It is now known that a supermassive black hole millions of billions of times the mass of our Sun is at the center of almost all galaxies. However, knowledge of these cosmic monsters is scarce, especially if we consider how they obtained such a large mass. Most are thought to be the result of merging with other, smaller black holes, although there is little observational evidence as well.

Now that we have the two images and the most powerful telescope ever created to begin his scientific observations, it will without a doubt allow us to gain great information about this extraordinary cosmic creature. But the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole isn’t the only one on the list. Webb will also be looking for ancient black holes.

Webb is expected to be ready before July 12, when NASA calls us to view the first scientific images from the new telescope.

NASA, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), will release the first full color images and spectroscopic data from the James Webb Space Telescope during a television broadcast starting at 10:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday, July 12, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.