Picture of the picture of the black hole, the first time that human beings were ever able to obtain a photograph of an actual black hole.
There was big news yesterday, particularly in the world of science geeks. Of course, I myself am not a science geek, because you have to have a certain measure of intelligence which, frankly, I do not possess.
Still, science always is fascinating, even when you do not fully grasp it. And this is especially true of astronomy, which has always gripped me, and millions of other people, for many years, probably even long before the so-called space race of the 1950's and 1960's, which of course culminated in the moon landing, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary later this year.
This is a really huge deal! Never before had human beings actually been able to see an image of a real black hole, and there is good reason for this. It is approximately 55 million light years from the Earth!
Some fascinating stats:
- the black hole is in the Virgo galaxy cluster
- it has a mass about 6.5 billions time that of our own sun!
- it took a team of researchers using the Event Horizon Telescope project that permitted humanity to see and release, for the first time, this image "the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87 (M87). The image shows a dark disc "outlined by emission from hot gas swirling around it under the influence of strong gravity near its event horizon."
Some pretty amazing stuff!
"As an astrophysicist, this is a thrilling day for me," said National Science Foundation Director France A. Córdova.
He was not the only one amazed by all of this.
"We are delighted to be able to report to you today that we have seen what we thought was unseeable. We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole," said EHT Director Shep Doeleman of Harvard University.
This is a really huge deal! Never before had human beings actually been able to see an image of a real black hole, and there is good reason for this. It is approximately 55 million light years from the Earth!
Some fascinating stats:
- the black hole is in the Virgo galaxy cluster
- it has a mass about 6.5 billions time that of our own sun!
- it took a team of researchers using the Event Horizon Telescope project that permitted humanity to see and release, for the first time, this image "the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87 (M87). The image shows a dark disc "outlined by emission from hot gas swirling around it under the influence of strong gravity near its event horizon."
Some pretty amazing stuff!
"As an astrophysicist, this is a thrilling day for me," said National Science Foundation Director France A. Córdova.
He was not the only one amazed by all of this.
"We are delighted to be able to report to you today that we have seen what we thought was unseeable. We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole," said EHT Director Shep Doeleman of Harvard University.
You can read more about this, and see a better image of the black hole, by clicking on the following link to check out this article from NPR, from which I obtained most of the specific information and all of the quotes used in the above blog entry:
Earth Sees First Image Of A Black Hole by Bill Chappell, April 10, 2019:
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