First Ever Picture of a Black Hole: Animation Explained

First Ever Picture of a Black Hole: Animation Explained

If you could fly next to the supermassive black hole M87*, this is what you would see. 

April 10, 2019: 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.

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.

This breakthrough was announced in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun.

For additional information and resources, please visit: NSF Exploring Black Holes: https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/blackholes/

Credit: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Release Date: April 10, 2019

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