Astronomers reveal the first-ever picture of a black hole
On April 10, 2019, in coordinated press conferences around the world, researchers unveiled the first direct visual evidence – a photo, albeit in the “light” of radio waves – of a supermassive black hole. This is the result of a multi-year, international collaboration. The astronomers said it presents “paradigm-shifting” observations of the gargantuan black hole in the center of the galaxy M87, 55 million light-years from Earth. The image doesn’t show the black hole itself; black holes are black because no light can escape them, and thus the holes themselves are invisible. Instead, what astronomers are calling the black hole’s “shadow,” a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around the hole. This black hole, by the way, at M87’s heart, is thought to be some 6.5 billion times more massive than our sun. To obtain the image, astronomers used the Event Horizon Telescope – a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes – designed specifically to ...