First Photo Of Black Hole In Space — PICS

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April 10, 2019 11:52AM EDT

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First Photo Of Black Hole In Space

First Photo Of Black Hole In Space — ‘We’ve exposed a part of our universe we’ve never seen before,” astronomer Shep Doeleman said on April 10 when unveiling the first picture every taken of a black hole. The picture, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration showed 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.

Taken in 2017, it took two years of computer analysis to determine what exactly the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (a global network of telescopes) captured. Scientists were overjoyed to realize they had a picture of a supermassive black hole, one located in the center of Galaxy M87 in the Virgo constellation. This one blurry photo has since opened a new window into the study of these fascinating phenomenon.

“We have seen what we thought was unseeable,” said Sheperd Doeleman, director of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, added. “We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole.”

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First Photo Of Black Hole In Space

First Photo Of Black Hole In Space — The celebration of this scientific achievement happened around the world. As the photo was being unveiled in Washington, D.C., Mareki Honma of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan revealed the first image during a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, 10 April 2019. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration presented its first results in several simultaneous press conferences around the globe.

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First Photo Of Black Hole In Space

First Photo Of Black Hole In Space — Mareki Honma of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan fields questions over this major achievement. The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, called EHT, is a global network of telescopes. It took eight radio telescopes, using Very-Long-Baseline-Interferometry, to form like Voltron in order to capture this image. Working in tandem, the eight telescopes made a virtual MASSIVE telescope the size of planet Earth, and this collaboration was able to capture the shot of the black hole.

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First Photo Of Black Hole In Space

First Photo Of Black Hole In Space — At a press conference at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, Heino Falcke, professor at the Radboud University in Nijmegen unveiled the first image ever of a black hole. Capturing this image took the entire planet, as the telescopes involved in the eight-telescope array included ALMA, APEX, the IRAM 30-meter telescope, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano, the Submillimeter Array, the Submillimeter Telescope and the South Pole Telescope, according to CNN.

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First Photo Of Black Hole In Space

First Photo Of Black Hole In Space — While the image was blurry and, to some, underwhelming — drawing comparisons to the Eye of Sauron, Galactus, and an orange donut online — this photograph was an accomplishment that these scientists will cherish for the rest of their days. Pictured here are Anton Zensus of Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy and Chair of the Board of EHT (Event Horizon Telescope), Eduardo Dos of Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy, Luciano Rezzolla of Goethe University in Frankfurt, Monica Moscibrodzka of Radboud University in Nijmegen, Heino Falcke, professor at the Radboud University in Nijmegen and Chair of Science Council of the EHT ERC (European Research Council) grantee and EU Commissioner responsible for Research, Science and Innovation Portuguese Carlos Moedas.

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First Photo Of Black Hole In Space

First Photo Of Black Hole In Space — Luciano Rezzolla of Goethe University in Frankfurt attends the unveiling ceremony of the black hole picture. The black hole was unleashing a violent jet of energy 5,000 light-years into space. Hot, dense gas that swirls around the black hole (which creates gravitational fields so powerful that not even light can escape) the intense pressure causes energy to erupt from either side. Thus, supermassive black holes can be the most luminous objects in the universe, per the New York Times.

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