Astronomical breakthrough: People go gaga over first ever real picture of black hole

Years after relying on computer-generated images of black holes, scientists have released the first ever picture of
11 Apr, 2019

Years after relying on computer-generated images of black holes, scientists have released the first ever picture of an actual huge black hole located millions of light years away.

Yesterday, astronomers unveiled the first ever picture captured of a supermassive black hole using the Event Horizon Telescope. The black hole is located in the Messier 87 galaxy, which is about 55 million light years away.

Engadget explained, the image shows the ‘shadow’ created as the telescope bends and sucks in light. The extremely large black hole has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. EHT Director Shep Doeleman said, “We’ve exposed part of the universe that was invisible to us before.”

The image was obviously not an easy one to capture, it required connecting eight existing high-altitude telescopes around the world to reach an angular resolution high enough to capture the object at an extreme distance – the Event Horizon is 24.9 billion miles across the celestial body.

The picture got everyone across the world super excited about the discovery. People from all across the world poured in their enthusiastic reactions on social media site Twitter.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019

Read Comments