Multiple calibration and imaging methods have revealed a ring-like structure with a dark central region - the black hole's shadow - that persisted over multiple independent EHT observations. "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."
"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," explained chair of the EHT Science Council Heino Falcke of Radboud University, the Netherlands. The presence of these objects affects their environment in extreme ways, warping spacetime and super-heating any surrounding material. Over the last two decades, NSF has directly funded more than $28 million in EHT research, the largest commitment of resources for the project.īlack holes are extraordinary cosmic objects with enormous masses but extremely compact sizes. The National Science Foundation (NSF) played a pivotal role in this discovery by funding individual investigators, interdisciplinary scientific teams and radio astronomy research facilities since the inception of EHT. "This is an extraordinary scientific feat accomplished by a team of more than 200 researchers." Doeleman of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. "We have taken the first picture of a black hole," said EHT project director Sheperd S. The EHT is the result of years of international collaboration and offers scientists a new way to study the most extreme objects in the Universe predicted by Einstein's general relativity during the centennial year of the historic experiment that first confirmed the theory. The EHT links telescopes around the globe to form an Earth-sized virtual telescope with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. We enable scientists and engineers to illuminate the unknown, to reveal the subtle and complex majesty of our universe." Yet with more observations like this one they are yielding their secrets. They have exotic properties and are mysterious to us. Black holes have sparked imaginations for decades. "This is a huge day in astrophysics," said NSF Director France Córdova. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun.
The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster.
#First picture of black hole series#
This breakthrough was announced in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) - a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration - was designed to capture images of a black hole.
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