Historical: this is the first picture of a black hole

Science is A great day for astronomy: for the first time, allowed astronomers a picture of a black hole. The result is a picture of a black hole three million times as large as our earth, almost as large as our entire solar system, and 6.5 billion times as heavy as the sun. “The heavyweight champion of all black holes in the universe.” The first is reserved for the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an international collaboration. “We have which, given that we thought it was impossible to see”, says the managing director of EHT.

For the first time astronomers managed to take a photo of a black hole. Particularly, because to the extent that they had no idea how such a thing looks like in reality. A black hole or an area in the astronomical space where gravity is so strong that nothing out of escapes, not even light - is quite abstract, and incredibly difficult to photograph. Researchers stared himself half-century blind on the shooting of a supermassive black hole. the

The result was worldwide, with many proudly presented to six simultaneous organized press conferences. The discovery would be comparable to the moon landing, and now one will speak of “the time for the photo and the time after the photo”. the

On the photo is an empty space around which a bright ring consisting of photons by the strong force of gravity in an orbit around the hole is forced to be - lit. In the middle there is a dark spot. That is the shadow of the waarnemingshorizon.

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Originally there would have been two photos to be displayed. One of Sagittarius A, located in the center of the Milky way. And one of an even bigger black hole in the center of Messier 87 (M87), an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo. The astronomers showed only a photo of Messier 87, with the promise that the photo of the black hole of our galaxy will follow.

A picture of the black hole, comes down to the shooting of a mustard seed in Washington DC from Brussels.

Astronomers Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)

As a black hole emits light or reflects back, it was a real challenge to make a snapshot of. No single telescope is advanced enough to take a picture. That is why the international Event Horizon Telescope set up. That is a network of eight radio telescopes on four continents - including the ALMA and the Apex of the European Southern Observatory ESO and more than two hundred people from at least eighteen countries. The network of telescopes made at exactly the same time photos. Via atomic clocks were the telescopes are tuned to each other so that the whole process synchronously proceeded. Finally, the different images collected and layer by layer merged.

The black hole is about 50 to 55 million light years removed from us. There, take a picture of them comes down to the shooting of a mustard seed in Washington DC from Brussels, said the astronomers at the press conference in Brussels. A second comparison that speaks to the imagination: from a cafe in Paris, a newspaper in New York read.