A Picture of the Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole

Absolutely jaw dropping how inconceivably huge these supermassive black holes are. I always love it when Veritasium delves into the topic of space.

The world needs teachers like him! Watched many videos about Sgr A* imaging and none of them explained it as clearly and simple as he did! I am marking this video as my black hole reference.

This was so rewarding to watch and fascinating to learn how far we’ve come in proving black holes exist. In my college astronomy texts from just two decades ago it was all still considered just theoretical. Thanks Veritasium!

Thanks Derek! But it still remains unclear to me: if the accretion disk can be directed towards us, then why can't we see its leading edge crossing the central region of the image? After all, some of the rays from it are not directed in orbit around the black hole, but directly towards us, and, in theory, should not change their trajectory (well, or almost).

Amazingly well explained! I can't imagine an "easier" way of presenting such a complicated and non-intuitive phenomenon.

Hello Derek, I applaud as excitedly as I can what you do; thrilled my pre-teen children look forward to each of your videos and deeply satisfied and comforted when they walk away fascinated and excited how they learned a fundamental and complex concept that might have otherwise been too difficult to grasp. I feel less disappointed as a father bent on staying in "scientist" mode that you and the videos you deliver exist! You have my eternal gratitude and my undying support!

More space please. This was absolutely amazing. Thanks.

As always, truly quality work! Thank you for all the hard work you put into these videos! Feels like a professional documentary every time

Man, thank you for making these videos. I’ve been obsessed with astronomy and Astro physics my entire life but you somehow have a way of explaining things that helps me to understand better than ever. I’ve thought about that image of a black hole from interstellar for years now trying to figure out why it looked the way it did. I knew it had a lot to do with the mass and warping of space time but this video is so informative. Thanks again for the great content.

The way you describe the 'Earth sized" telescope at 10 minutes was so perfect.

That we have managed to aggregate instruments across the earth’s surface to achieve once impossible resolution is a real triumph for science, made possible by the use of GPS timing and location cues embedded in computer algorithms processing results gathered around the globe. Despite my understanding it, it’s a stunning accomplishment.

Goosebumps!

The craziest thing to me is that these images just confirm our theories. We had visuals of black holes purely based on the Maths. A random guy on the street could have a decent image of a black hole because a movie did the effort to represent it correctly (minus the lighter and darker parts). And only a few years later, we manage to take a picture which just happens to be exactly what we expected.

I‘ve pretty much replaced Netflix with Veritasium. I mean, there are other great and very interesting channels in KZclip as well, but this one just takes the prize! Thanks Derek!

Thank you for explaining how the image was obtained. I love learning about the science and techniques used to arrive at a discovery, or in this case, in getting an image of something so incredibly far away.

Your dedication and interest to make us understand the concepts are extremely adorable. This is the best explanation I have ever seen on the internet.

This is mind bending. Your explanation is so easy to grasp given the complexity of the subject matter. Now I have some level of understanding when I look at the image. Thanks! 😁

Wow, great graphics. Zooming into the center of the Milky Way is an experience.

Somehow “supermassive” still sounds like an understatement. I vote for “SuperDuperMassive”

The fact that I could understand everything you said, speaks volumes about your ability to teach. Thank you for making me feel smarter than I actually am!