This week in science and technology

April 12, 2019 / Tags: twistech - science - technology - black hole

The first-ever image of a black hole. Messier 87 (M87) is an elliptical galaxy 55 million light years away from Earth, and residing at its core is a supermassive black hole — 6.5 billion times the mass of Sol, our sun — that has been the subject of observation from eight ground-based telescope around the world. This week, in a historic reveal following years-long effort, a global team of astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) shared a picture of that black hole. However, as noted by The Guardian, be aware that “the black hole itself is unseeable, as it’s impossible for light to escape from it; what we can see is its event horizon”. The image helps in understanding better how black holes work and is important in testing Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which predicts the existence of black holes. (Harvard, EHT, The Guardian)

This week in science and technology / April 12, 2019

Julian I. Kamil