First direct photograph of a black hole

On 10/04/2019, the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration released the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow, revealing the object at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy. The black hole, known as M87*, is located about 55 million light years from Earth in the Virgo constellation. The image showed a bright ring of emission surrounding a dark central region, representing the black hole’s shadow caused by extreme gravitational bending of light. The result was announced simultaneously at press conferences held by the collaboration in multiple countries, following years of coordinated observations and data analysis. The image was produced using a global network of eight ground based radio observatories operating together as a very long baseline interferometry array. By synchronizing telescopes across locations including Hawaii, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Arizona, and Antarctica, scientists effectively created a virtual telescope roughly the size of Earth. Observations were conducted at a wavelength of 1.3 millimeters, allowing the array to resolve structures comparable to the size of the black hole’s event horizon. The resulting image revealed a ring shaped structure formed by hot plasma orbiting the black hole, with the darker center corresponding to the shadow created by light captured by gravity. Measurements derived from the data indicated that M87* has a mass of approximately 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. The observed ring diameter closely matched theoretical predictions from Einstein’s General Relativity for a black hole of that mass. The brightness asymmetry in the ring was consistent with material moving toward Earth appearing brighter due to relativistic effects. These findings provided observational support for models describing black holes and the behavior of matter under extreme gravitational conditions. The Event Horizon Telescope project involved more than 200 researchers and multiple institutions worldwide. Data collected in April 2017 were stored on high capacity drives and later combined using specialized supercomputers to reconstruct the image. The release on 10/04/2019 marked the first time humanity obtained direct visual evidence of a black hole’s shadow and the immediate environment around it.