Astronomers operating the Event Horizon Telescope – a telescope array made up of a number of networked satellites around the globe. The black hole was photographed from the middle of galaxy Messier 87 (M87), 53.49 million light years away from the Earth. The photo shows a bright red ring formed as light bends around the outside of the black hole (known as the event horizon), which is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun.
What would happen if the Earth went into a black hole?
The closest black hole to Earth is V616 Monocerotis, V616 Mon for short.
The black hole is 9 to 13 times the Sun’s mass and is located about 3,000 light years away.
Currently, it remains stationary and is not on course to find the Earth at any point.
According to the website The Conversation, Earth would likely be doomed if it was absorbed by an errant black hole.
They say: “The edge of the Earth closest to the black hole would feel a much stronger force than the far side.
“As such, the doom of the entire planet would be at hand. We would be pulled apart.
“Equally, we might not even notice if a truly supermassive black hole swallowed us below its event horizon as everything would appear as it once was, at least for a small period of time. In this case, it could be some time before disaster struck.
“But don’t lose too much sleep, we’d have to be unfortunate to “hit” a black hole in the first place – and we might live on holographically after the crunch anyway.”