Here Is the First Image of a Black Hole
Scientists have detected black holes time and time again, but have always relied on indirect evidence to do so. That all changed today with the first-ever image of an event horizon, the "point of no return" of a black hole.
The Event Horizon Telescope consortium just unveiled its first black hole image. The "telescope" is actually a group of telescopes around the planet, used to create what the project calls a "planet-sized virtual telescope."
The first result was not, as many suspected, an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, but was instead the one at the center of M87, a giant galaxy 53 million light years away.
Previous black hole detections have relied on indirect detection. For instance, several have been detected based on jets of material radiating from their center in X-ray light, while others have been detected based on the ripples they make in the fabric of space. But this is the first time an event horizon has been imaged directly.
This is a developing story.
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