The incredible “ring of fire” black hole was photographed 55 million light-years away from Earth in the galaxy Messier 87. Astronomers on Earth linked eight powerful radio telescopes to snap what is essentially the shadow of the black hole, cast by the glowing clouds of gas around it. The monumental breakthrough was published on Wednesday, April 10, across six scientific papers in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The black hole picture is a remarkable achievement because it is not a computer simulation – it is the real deal.
Sheperd S Doeleman, head of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, said: “We have taken the first picture of a black hole.
“This is an extraordinary scientific feat accomplished by a team of more than 200 researchers.”
Michael Kramer, director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, boasted the image marks an important divergent moment in history.
He said: “The history of science will be divided into the time before the image, and the time after the image.”
EHT astronomers unveiled the black hole image yesterday after two years of linking together eight radio telescope observatories around the globe into one powerful instrument.
Professor Derek Ward-Thompson, University of Central Lancashire, said: “This is a truly remarkable result. Obtaining an image of a black hole is not as easy as snapping a photo with an ordinary camera.
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“However, the power created by linking up all these telescopes around the world is immense.
“It’s the equivalent of being able to see an object on the surface of the Moon that is only a few centimetres across.
“Until now, this was the domain of science fiction and artist’s impressions.
“To be a part of the first team to image a black hole is an amazing feeling.
“This achievement stands right up there with any other feat in astronomy.”
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What is a black hole?
Black holes are powerful wells of gravity, which have been around since shortly after the Big Bang or are created when stars collapse in on themselves.
Black holes are incredibly hard to comprehend objects because they warp the time-space around them unlike anything else in the universe.
At the centre of each black hole is a singularity or a point where the black hole’s density is infinitely squeezed into an infinitely small amount of space.
Around a black hole is also the so-called event horizon, which is a point of no return past which escaping a black hole’s gravity is impossible.
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How did the Event Horizon Telescope take the black hole picture?
Black holes are extraordinary but they are impossible to look at directly and are impossible to take photographs of.
Instead, the EHT’s astronomers looked at the accreted ring of bright material around the black hole in order to capture the “black hole’s shadow”.
Heino Falcke of Radboud University and the EHT science council said: “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.
“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.”
Paul TP Ho, an EHT board member, said: “Once we were sure we had imaged the shadow, we could compare our observations to extensive computer models that include the physics of warped space, superheated matter and strong magnetic fields.
“Many of the features of the observed image match our theoretical understanding surprisingly well.
“This makes us confident about the interpretation of our observations, including our estimation of the black hole’s mass.”
And Professor Ward-Thompson added: “Until now, this was the domain of science fiction and artist’s impressions.
“To be a part of the first team to image a black hole is an amazing feeling. This achievement stands right up there with any other feat in astronomy.”