This is the first image ever taken of the event horizon of a supermassive black hole, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2017. Photo courtesy CBC/Event Horizon Telescope.
The first image of a black hole looks like a glowing eye that’s not unlike the powerful flaming Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration has been on a mission to prove the existence of regions in space where the force of gravity is so strong that light is not able to escape.
The team includes Avery Broderick, an astrophysicist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ont., who calls the picture’s release a beautiful and profound moment in science.
The Canadian was part of an international team that collaborated to produce and interpret today’s historic images.
The photo was compiled with help from eight earth-based telescopes around the world and is of a black hole in a galaxy 50-million light-years from Earth.
The black hole is estimated to be six billion times more massive than our sun.
Researchers say their findings help offer further support of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, first announced in 1915.
The Canadian Press
