10 April 2019 08:16 pm
Scientists released an image of a black hole captured by the Event Horizon Telescope, a project of eight radio-based telescopes tasked with taking the first ever photo of a black hole.
Black holes are technically impossible to see because everything – even light – is drawn in by their gravitational pull.
"This is the strongest evidence we have to date of the existence of black holes," said Sheperd Doeleman, an astrophysicist with the Center for Astrophysics.
The photo captures a ring-like structure with a dark middle, which is the shadow of the black hole, at the center of galaxy Messier 87.
"If immersed in a bright region, like a disc of glowing gas, we expect a black hole to create a dark region similar to a shadow – something predicted by Einstein's general relativity that we've never seen before," said Heino Falcke of Radboud University in the Netherlands, the chairman of the Event Horizon Telescope Science Council. "This shadow, caused by the gravitational bending and capture of light by the event horizon, reveals a lot about the nature of these fascinating objects and allowed us to measure the enormous mass of M87's black hole."
"We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago," Doeleman said. "Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes and the event horizon." (usnews)