Scientists Give Us The First Picture Of A Black Hole

The photo above may not look very exciting to you, but it should. It is the first photograph of an actual Black Hole. It is called M87, and it is 55 million light-years away from us. This is an amazing accomplishment.

I liked the way Eugene Robinson describes the moment in The Washington Post. Here is part of what he wrote:

Forget everything else for a moment and behold infinity.

On Wednesday, scientists unveiled a fuzzy image that should blow every mind on the planet: the first-ever picture of a black hole, which is a region of space so dense that nothing can escape its gravitational pull, not even light. Black holes were predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and their existence has been inferred from decades’ worth of indirect observation. But we’ve never actually seen one until now, and the experience is humbling.

Let’s take a moment to marvel at how weird and wondrous the universe turns out to be. Black holes, which are not rare — one lurks at the center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way — can be thought of as portals that lead to some other realm that lies forever beyond our reach. They are places where space and time as we know them cease to exist, where the familiar parameters that define our reality lose all meaning.

To see such an object is to gaze into the ultimate abyss. Dumbstruck awe is the only reasonable response. . . .

How is it even possible to take a picture of a black hole against the inky blackness of space? How do you capture an image of nothing? It turns out that some black holes, including the massive M87, are surrounded by in-falling material that circles rapidly like water going down a drain. All of that material reaches such high speeds that it forms a hot, glowing disc — a blazing doughnut around the voracious hole.

Which is exactly what M87 looks like. Just wow.

Humans are capable of epic screw-ups that endanger our very existence. But sometimes, somehow, we still get it right.