Comment by turtletontine
6 hours ago
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.
This 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.
Can you explain the past tense "there was" ? Is there a reason for a black hole to dissapear?
The black hole still exists (probably), the hypothesis that it existed was proven in the past.