Event Horizon Telescope Successfully Captured The First-Ever Image Of A Black Hole

The Event Horizon Telescope had finally captured the first-ever image of a black hole after a 10-day long task. It observed and took images of the mysterious regions around the massive black hole called Sagittarius A* and a black hole, which is about 1,500 times heavier at the center of the galaxy M87. On the other hand, the image will not be released yet, and it is under investigation and examination now.

Sagittarius A* is a supermassive black hole located in the middle of the Milky Way. This is the first time that the region around Sagittarius A* has been imaged. This could also test the Einstein's Theory of General Relativity and better understand black holes, according to Universe Today.

According to Heino Falcke, a radio astronomer at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, even if the first images are still inferior and washed out, they can already examine and investigate for the first time Einstein's Theory of Gravity in the odd environment of a black hole. One of the first predictions of Einstein's theory includes the existence of enormously massive black holes. Falcke further said that the first images could turn black holes from some imaginary object to something existing that they can examine.

National Geographic pointed out that the scientists monitored the black holes in millimeter radio waves. The radio telescopes are located at high altitudes such as the on tops of the mountains or high desert plateaus. On the other hand, the weather including clouds, rain or snow could interfere with the observation and high winds could also shut down the telescope. With this, they were able to complete the task. They will have to wait for months for analysis and figure out if they generated an image of the black hole portrait.

The data from all the telescopes, which was recorded on 4,024 hard drives, will be forwarded to the Event Horizon Telescope's processing center at MIT Haystack and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. Hopefully, the image could be released by the end of 2017.