Black hole gets welcomed to the Earth with memes
On Wednesday morning, the National Science Foundation and the Event Horizon Telescope group revealed the first recorded image of a black hole, and it only took seconds for the memes to follow.
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun pic.twitter.com/AymXilKhKe
— Event Horizon 'Scope (@ehtelescope) April 10, 2019
The memes came fast and furious, basically as soon as the stunning image hit the web.
This was the plan all along. pic.twitter.com/pdmuaWXglp
— James O'Malley (@Psythor) April 10, 2019
feeling cute might delete all information that passes through my event horizon later pic.twitter.com/gTZx1ZUsjc
— ryan teague beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) April 10, 2019
wait... zoom out pic.twitter.com/D9gXZtjqY7
— Matt Buechele (@mattbooshell) April 10, 2019
Now I will be singing “Black Hole Sun” all day. Dammit. https://t.co/AbJQWN8ZWi
— Maximiliano Bretos (@MaxBretosSports) April 10, 2019
But perhaps the most pervasive meme was comparing the M87 black hole to the legendary Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings books and films.
Ahh, Space Sauron https://t.co/w44673U71h
— Dad (@fivefifths) April 10, 2019
The Eye of Sauron has returned to Mordor. Assemble the fellowship. https://t.co/grSe0xVjgt
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) April 10, 2019
#EHTBlackHole that's no black hole, they found Sauron. Middle Earth here we come pic.twitter.com/Hqqn9apg75
— NoleMan (@NoleMan22) April 10, 2019
NSF: Amazing first photo of black hole! This changes everything!
Sauron: Mother? pic.twitter.com/4ML5ytcZuX— Sarah Parcak (@indyfromspace) April 10, 2019
Love to probe distant galaxies only to discover they're inhabited by the eye of Sauron https://t.co/iIQNXYKGbG
— Brian Fung (@b_fung) April 10, 2019
There's still a lot to learn about what, exactly, we're looking at in this image. But it's safe to say that it's probably not really the Eye of Sauron.
Probably.
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