First look at our galaxy’s black hole released just as society collapses into itself
Great marketing tie-in, Internet! You nailed it once again
Aux Features black hole
We’ve seen a lot of marketing gimmicks in our time covering all things pop culture, but we gotta say—you’re wild for this one, NASA. Presumably to get everyone even more hyped for society’s looming self-immolation, astronomers have just released humanity’s first ever glimpse at the incomprehensible terror that is the supermassive black hole around which the entirety of our Milky Way galaxy orbits. Get hyped, y’all!
Hot damn! Just look at that thing… well, not so much “look” at it, since the black hole dubbed Sagittarius A* isn’t technically visible to our pathetic human eyes, seeing as how not even light itself escapes the celestial phenomenon’s cruel grip. But look at its low-res effects on the universe around it!
“Light escaping from the hot gas swirling around the black hole appears to us as the bright ring,” professor of astrophysics Feryal Özel told NBC News this morning, going on to explain,“Light that is too close to the black hole—close enough to be swallowed by it—eventually crosses its horizon and leaves behind just the dark void in the center.” A bit on the nose, Prof. Özel, but you’ll get no argument from us.
According to researchers’ estimates, Sagittarius A* is located approximately 27,000 lightyears away from Earth, and is about 4 million times more massive than our own Sun. The news was first revealed earlier today in a special edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and is actually only the second actual image of a black hole ever taken.
What’s more, this is apparently the first visual confirmation that it is indeed a black hole that lies in the center of our galaxy. Although this theory has been widely accepted for some time, the new image provides incontrovertible evidence to support it. Great job, everyone involved. We’ll do our best to enjoy this before life imitates the art you provided us today.
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16 Comments
It might look 4 million times more massive but we all know the camera adds 40 Gigatonnes of mass.
But it’s bigger on the inside, so it all evens out.
I really want to jump into it.
Jumping foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
“Everything sucksism” was a term coined by Nathan Rabin in a column for
The Onion A.V. Club to decry a trend of ironic detachment in pop
culture, shitting on things just for the purpose of shitting on them.
Rabin was talking about our habit of taking down sitting ducks for
sport. They’re easy targets and we gain little from calling out their
foibles, but we do it anyway. According to Rabin, this culture is “cheap
adolescent nihilism.”
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/self-fulfilling-prophesy-ensures-everything-sucks/
That was also written before Q-Anon, Trump election, Jan 6th, and Roe v. Wade being on the fence…. I think Rabin would have been more specifically talking about shitting on all forms of pop culture, whereas this article is talking about life in on Earth in general.
I don’t know, I think the quote Everything sucksism reduces all of human endeavor to a cheap punchline.Is very much about life in general and very appropriate for an article taking an amazing scientific feat (a picture of a black hole) and ultimately making it about how current social events suck.
“to decry a trend of ironic detachment in pop culture” I don’t see this article shitting on the scientific achievements. If that quote was about life in general then Rabin would have never worked for a site associated with The Onion. He was mostly talking about misunderstanding aspects of culture like Juggalos and D-list movies and such. (Like in his books.) The Onion & AV Club like to point out when the world is shitty and things like the War in Ukraine, Trump fan bases, and Supreme Court possibly overturning Roe v Wade are making the writers extra snarky. So the scientific achievement is awesome & society seems to be collapsing. To quite the Simpsons, it can be two things.
Probably the weirdest Disney movie ever made.
In these days of tiktoks and instagrams and stuff, it’s nice to know that some things can still make a splash on good old fashioned radio waves
Looks like Larry Niven was wrong about the galactic core exploding.
That’s pretty cool but also incredibly underwhelming since I’m not a space science geek who can really understand the significance of this image I guess.