What’s more, because of their strong gravity, black holes tend to be surrounded by other bright matter that makes it hard to see the object itself. “And taking a picture of it would be equivalent to taking a picture of a DVD on the surface of the moon.” “The largest one in the sky the black hole in the center of the Milky Way,” Dimitrios Psaltis, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona, explained in an email. The biggest problem with trying to see a black hole is that even the supermassive ones (with masses millions of times heavier than our sun) are relatively tiny.
Astronomers also speculate that some black holes may have been formed in the early chaotic universe after the Big Bang. Why no astronomer has ever seen a black hole with a telescopeīlack holes are born when massive stars collapse in on themselves and create a region of gravity so intense that not even light can escape its grasp. Because as massive black holes are, they’re actually incredibly hard to see up close. The National Science Foundation is describing the results as “groundbreaking.” And if an image is produced, it will be a remarkable accomplishment. On April 10, a collaboration called the Event Horizon Telescope is set to announce the results of an effort to capture an image of the supermassive blackhole at the center of our galaxy.
We’ve “heard” them, so to speak, as scientists have recorded the gravitational waves (literal ripples in spacetime) emanating from black holes that collided with one another billions of years ago.īut any photo you’ve seen of a dark mass warping spacetime … well, that’s just an illustration.
Nothing can escape one, not even light.Įven though black holes excite the imagination like few other concepts in science, the truth is that no astronomer has actually seen one. Impossibly dense, deep, and powerful, black holes reveal the limits of physics. You can see it here, and learn more about how this historic image was made.
#FALLING INTO A BLACK HOLE GIF UPDATE#
Update : In April 2019, scientists published the first-ever image of a black hole.
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