First Image of Black Hole Revealed

We have been always been fascinated how Black Holes look like since we don't have any photographic proof of the celestial phenomenon. We usually have an artist representation of simply a spinning black object with some light at its ends. But capturing something that can also absorb light is never easy because it is very far and needs to have a collaborative efforts of many institutions and astronomers.

Recently the Event Horizons Telescope has released an image of an actual black hole which is in the middle of the galaxy M87 located in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. To make this image, it took more than 200 researchers and 8 light ground-based radio telescopes from different parts of the world to capture a well coordinated picture of it. It may seem like a star with a huge sunspot, but it is made up of thousands of stars form that galaxy with a huge dark void in the middle.

Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows 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. This long-sought image provides the strongest evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes and opens a new window onto the study of black holes, their event horizons, and gravity. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

The joint project was very critical with accuracy, that is why they made sure that they are synced using atomic clocks with approximately 350 terabytes of day processed each day to  focus and build this image of the target . The actual black hole is also surrounded by it's "shadow" which is also a massive space where light and darkness would combine until it is pitch black as you go to the center.

Film interpretation of a black hole in the movie Interstellar.

We can see the black hole at the center with some light around it, similar to a solar eclipse but the center is a very powerful light absorbing mass which many still wonder what happens to the light it absorbs. With many depictions of how Black Holes looks like, this simple yet well coordinated image is already a huge step in learning more about how they will function and how to capture them more clearer and more accurately. 

Comparing it to the black hole we see in media and science books, it does share the dark center. But it is still a mystery on how light behaves when it comes into the gravitational force and what it can do, can it be a wormhole to another part of space? Or can it be a time travel portal to certain periods of existence of the universe. But this is why we strive to get to these results with actual proof. Hopefully these will be the next thing we would expect and hopefully be answered soon within our lifetime.