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Image of the supermassive block hole at the centre of our galaxy (Photos: Radio (EHT Collaboration) via CNP/ABACAPRESS.COM; NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/HST/STScI)

Scientists have provided the first look at what they called the "gentle giant" lurking at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy, unveiling an image of a supermassive black hole that devours any matter wandering within its gargantuan gravitational pull.

The black hole - called Sagittarius A*, or SgrA* - is only 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-ever photo of a black hole - that one residing at the heart of a different galaxy.

University of Arizona astronomer Feryal Ozel, at a news conference in Washington DC, hailed "the first direct image of the gentle giant in the centre of our galaxy," showing a glowing ring of red, yellow and white surrounding a darker centre.

Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius "A" star) possesses four million times the mass of our sun and is located about 26,000 light-years - the distance light travels in a year, 9.5 trillion km - from earth.

Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects with gravity so strong that not even light can escape, making viewing them quite challenging.

A black hole's event horizon is the point of no return beyond which anything - stars, planets, gas, dust and all forms of electromagnetic radiation - gets dragged into oblivion.

Project scientists have looked for a ring of light - super-heated disrupted matter and radiation circling at tremendous speed at the edge of the event horizon - around a region of darkness representing the actual black hole.

This is known as the black hole's shadow or silhouette.

"This image shows a bright ring surrounding the darkness, the telltale sign of the shadow of the black hole," Ozel said.

"Light escaping from the hot gas swirling around the black hole appears to us as the bright ring. Light that is too close to the black hole - close enough to be swallowed by it - eventually crosses its horizon and leaves behind just a dark void in the centre."

"It turned out to be a gentler, more co-operative black hole than we had hoped for in the past decade of simulating its environment," Ozel added.

"We love our black hole."

The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy that contains at least 100 billion stars.

Viewed from above or below it resembles a spinning pinwheel, with our sun situated on one of the spiral arms and Sagittarius A* located at the centre.

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astrophysicist Michael Johnson called the black hole "ravenous but inefficient," eating relatively little matter.

The image released in 2019 of the supermassive black hole in a galaxy called Messier 87, or M87, showed a glowing ring of red, yellow and white surrounding a dark centre.

The M87 black hole is far more distant and massive than Sagittarius A*, situated about 54 million light-years from earth with a mass 6.5 billion times that of our sun.

The researchers said that Sagittarius A*, despite being much closer to our solar system than M87, was harder to image.

The diameter of Sagittarius A* is about 17 times that of the sun, meaning it would sit within the innermost planet Mercury's solar orbit.

In contrast, M87's diameter would encompass the entirely of our solar system.

"Sagittarius A* is over a thousand times less massive than the black hole at M87, but since it is in our own galaxy it is much closer and should appear just slightly larger on the sky," said radio astronomer Lindy Blackburn, an EHT data scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The Event Horizon Telescope is a global network of observatories working collectively to observe radio sources associated with black holes.

The project was begun in 2012 to try to directly observe the immediate environment of a black hole.

There are different categories of black holes.

The smallest are so-called stellar-mass black holes formed by the collapse of massive individual stars at the ends of their life cycles.

There also are intermediate-mass black holes, a step up in mass.

And finally there are the supermassive black holes that inhabit the centre of most galaxies.

These are thought to arise relatively soon after their galaxies are formed, devouring enormous amounts of material to achieve colossal size.

Thursday's announcement was made in simultaneous news conferences in the United States, Germany, China, Mexico, Chile, Japan and Taiwan.

 

© RAW 2022

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It took Tom Cruise 36 years to head back to the danger zone to bring a Top Gun sequel to the screen, and the first reviews from movie critics said it was well worth the wait.

Top Gun: Maverick earned a 96 per cent positive rating on the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregation website, which had collected 75 reviews as of Thursday afternoon. The movie debuts in theatres on May 27.

Cruise returns in the film as Pete Mitchell, the cocky navy pilot, codenamed Maverick, who has never risen through the ranks because of his penchant for bucking authority.

Mark Kennedy of the Associated Press called the movie "a textbook example of how to make a sequel".

"The movie satisfies with one foot in the past by hitting all the touchstones of the first film," Kennedy said, "and yet stands on its own."

Box office analysts predict the movie from Paramount Pictures will rank as one of the biggest box office hits of the summer. The movie had been scheduled for release in June 2020, but Paramount delayed its debut multiple times during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice Pro, said ticket sales would hit $US100 million ($A146 million) over the Memorial Day weekend in the US and Canada. That would make it highest-grossing debut of Cruise's career.

Critics said the movie offers thrilling flight scenes, an emotional story and strong performances by the supporting cast including Miles Teller, who plays the son of Goose, Maverick's partner who died in the original 1986 film.

But most of the praise was showered on Cruise.

"It's a fresh-faced gloss on the original ... powered, like the original, by a star who'll simply never stop being a star," wrote K Austin Collins of Rolling Stone.

Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly said the movie "belongs in almost every scene to Cruise".

"At this point in his career, he's not really playing characters so much as variations on a theme - the theme being, perhaps, The Last Movie Star," she said. "And in the air up there, he stands alone."

 

Watch the original trailer:

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Balenciagashoes

If you’re still struggling to understand why people would pay good money for ripped and distressed clothes, this latest shoe for sale will do your head in.

French luxury fashion brand Balenciaga is selling sneakers that look like they’ve been through a fire, though sadly not with a fire sale price to match.

Their Limited Edition Paris Hightop Trainer is being sold in a “Full Destroyed” style that has massive rips and discolouring to the fabric and rubber sole.

They look like they’re ready to fall apart even before you get them on your feet. And we're not sure how long they'd last once you started wearing them.

And the cost? Only $2,550!

The internet understandably exploded, thinking the brand must be trolling everyone. So it responded with plenty of its own trolling humour.

 

The funniest part for us is that the care instructions say to “wipe with a soft cloth”. Uh....how would you even tell the shoe was dirty? What could a soft cloth actually do?


Main images: Balenciaga website

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Multi-platinum selling pop-rock band 5 Seconds of Summer has released their new single “Me, Myself & I”.

The emotionally-driven song is a propulsive break-up anthem that showcases the group's pop and punk influences with angsty riffs and a huge sing-along chorus. Produced and co-written by Jason Evigan (Maroon 5, Dua Lipa, David Guetta, Jason Derulo), Jon Bellion (Justin Bieber, Halsey, Lauv), and Pete Nappi (GAYLE, Madison Beer), and Mick Coogan (Charlotte Lawrence, Carlie Hanson).

The new music video will drop on Saturday, May 14 at 7 am AEST on YouTube! So set your reminder 5SOS fans and lets break a record for most-watched in the shortest amount of time!

Of the song, Luke states, “’Me, Myself, and I’ is a really exciting song for us to have on the record that we’ve spent the last two years making. We’re all big fans of Jon Bellion and when he sent us the idea, we instantly connected with it. So much of what we had been writing lyrically was extremely introspective and this song fits like a puzzle piece with the rest of the album. We then ended up finishing it with Jon, Jason, Pete and Mick.”

Luke adds, “‘Me Myself and I’ explores the emotional cycle of feeling like you can do everything on your own and that you don’t need anyone else, but eventually realizing that sometimes you push away the best things in your life. We love this song and hope other people connect with it as much as we do.”

Additionally, the band has announced their highly anticipated 5th studio album, 5SOS5, which will arrive on September 23, 2022. The deluxe CD and digital versions of the album will have 19 tracks with cassette and vinyl formats also available. The album is available for pre-order now.

The album will showcase the band’s multi-faceted artistry and growth over their 10-year career, highlighting their dynamic sound, accompanied by reflective and intimate lyrics. The majority of the new album was written by the band and Michael led on production.

5SOS5 includes the new single plus their previously released tracks “Take My Hand” and “COMPLETE MESS,” along with 16 new songs. 

Take My Hand

Complete Mess

The band will end their current epic world tour in Australia this December, which includes two shows on the Sydney Opera House forecourt.

Tickets are available now.

Ticket Info Here