If there’s one thing to take away from this discovery, it’s that this is a major milestone in the field of astronomy. The image itself, shows a central dark region, encapsulated by a ring of light that looks brighter on one side. So, What Are We Looking At? Credit: Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et. This point of no return is where it becomes impossible to escape the black hole’s gravitational effects. Despite its name, a black hole isn’t “empty” so to speak, but rather, consists of such enormous amounts of matter which is densely packed into a small area, giving it the immense gravitation. Unless you’ve lived in your own black hole of sorts, all pun intended, it’s important to understand the global significance of this new observation.Ī ‘black hole’ is a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The image shows the “shadow” creates as the event horizon bends and sucks in light, also confirming the supermassive weight the hole gives off-40 billion kilometers, a mass 6.5 billion times that of our Sun, and 3 million times the size of the Earth.Īn “event horizon” is a region of space beyond the black hole in which the escape velocity is equal to the speed of light, making it impossible for anything, including light and sound to escape. The snapshot of the black hole in the Messier 87 galaxy (M87), a distant galaxy only 55 million light years away. If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, you are staring at real-world proof that Sauron from Tolkien’s Middle Earth exists. However, for those of you who aren’t on a quest to destroy the One Ring, you are looking at a huge milestone in astronomy-the world’s first visual proof that a black hole exists, provided by The Event Horizon Telescope.Īfter years of relying upon computer-generated imagery, which you’re probably used to from the average classroom textbook or documentary, scientists have actually utilized “ The Event Horizon Telescope” to capture the first real image of a black hole.
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