![]() While M87 is active in the sense that its black hole is consuming gas and stars around it, it is currently relatively quiescent, allowing the event horizon shadow to be well resolved. It shows the shadow of the event horizon of a 6 billion solar mass black hole at the centre of the active galaxy M87, clearly defined by a telescope the size of the Earth. On a truly historic day in the annals of astronomy, the world’s media were treated to a remarkable image. Today, the Event Horizon Telescope has shown us the invisible. Video from EHT Collaboration Fred Watson AM, Astronomer-at-Large at the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science This research is particularly important because it has the potential to test Einstein’s theory of gravity to the limits.” Travel from Earth to the M87 Black Hole Although we have been able to measure the properties of supermassive black holes before, this is the first time that we have seen a picture of the light from their very edges.īy using a telescope the size of the Earth, the team has been able to make an exquisite picture, in unprecedented detail, of the light bent around the edge of the black hole in the middle of a nearby galaxy. “As someone who has studied the environments of supermassive black holes, this long-awaited result from the Event Horizon Telescope is extremely exciting. Just imagine if the picture isn’t what we expect, a new era of astrophysics could be revealed! If the picture is as predicted then Einstein was vindicated in a way he couldn’t conceive of being possible a century ago.” Lisa Harvey-Smith, University of New South Wales and Australia’s Women in STEM Ambassador ![]() The shape of the shadow of the black hole against the bright material around it can test Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. While we know black holes exist thanks to hearing their collision through gravitational waves we still want this picture and that’s because seeing is believing. “The worldwide near-decade long experiment is nearly as epic as the prize itself – an impossible picture of a black hole.īlackholes are black as no light can escape them to reach us so the picture is in fact of the glowing bright material swirling around it. Alan Duffy, Swinburne University of Technology “Astronomers have successfully observed the invisible,” says Alister Graham, a Professor of Astronomy at the Swinburne University of Technology, who was not directly involved with the announcement.Īustralian astronomers and astrophysicists have expressed their amazement, intrigue and excitement about the black hole image, saying it opens a whole new level of knowledge about some of the most mysterious features of the cosmos. The data, some 5 petabytes worth, was then compiled using an algorithm developed by Katie Bouman, a postdoctoral researcher formerly of MIT, now with Caltech. The discovery was made by the Event Horizon Telescope – a system that linked radiotelescopes around the world and compiled observations to effectively create a single Earth-sized telescope. With a mass of around 6.5 billion Suns packed into the space equivalent to our Solar System, the black hole is far more massive than the one found in the centre of the Milky Way. The black hole is located in the centre of the Messier 87 galaxy, approximately 55 million light years away. It’s this point where some of the most extreme physics occur, say astrophysicists. ![]() The image, resembling a bright donut, shows for the very first time the Event Horizon – the point at which no light can escape the gravitational pull of the black hole. In one of the biggest scientific announcements of recent times, an international collaboration of astronomers and astrophysicists revealed overnight the first ever image of a black hole.
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