The galactic center data actually proved there was a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and weighed it precisely from those stars motions. The name of the account that posted that animation (Sagittarius A*) is the name of that supermassive black hole.
replyThis work earned the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/summary/
The term I would use instead is that the data provided observational support of a hypothesis. It didn't "prove" anything- proofs only exist in math. (yes, I know people use "prove" is colloquial way, but it's misleading, especially in observational work where you can't control variables to find causality.
replyCan you explain the past tense "there was" ? Is there a reason for a black hole to dissapear?
replyBlack holes probably disappear due to Hawking radiation, but I don’t think we have observational evidence and the process takes forever for the black holes you can observe.
replyThe black hole still exists (probably), the hypothesis that it existed was proven in the past.
reply> There should be much much more of this sort of thing.
replyAs more telescopes come online, there'll be more data available for this type of stuff. You gotta realize that when a telescope only looks at something once per year, it takes a long time to gather enough data for these types of images to be created. My go to example is the motion of stars around SagA*.
A good chunk of science communication centres around how one conveys the wow factor to folks who aren't already obsessed with the particular field. Images like this really help sell it to the rest of us
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