If you didn’t hear about the amazing discovery that happened on the 10th April 2019… where were you?
The first ever image of a black Hole was revealed by Astronomers on the 10th April 2019. It was captured by eight linked telescopes also know as the Event Horizon Collaboration (EHT).
The Photo shows a halo of dust and gas, tracing the outline of the black hole. Basically, a black hole is a cosmic trapdoor from which neither light nor matter can escape.
The EHT – a network of 8 radio telescopes in locations spanning from Antarctica to Spain and Chile, involved more than 200 scientists to collect the data to make the photo. They achieved enough firepower to combine these telescopes, effectively creating a telescope the size of the Earth!
“We’re a melting pot of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, and that’s what it took to achieve something once thought impossible”, said Bouman.
Imagine trying to take a photo of an orange that’s on the moon with your smartphone… it would seem impossible! But not for Dr Katie Bouman!
As rising star from this monumental event, Dr Katie Bouman is the 29 yr old computer scientist that helped to develop an algorithm that created the black hole image.
Here is the real (human) Katie Bouman waiting for the image to download!
This all began 3 years ago when she was a graduate student at MIT. The data she and her team collected was captured and stored on hundreds of hard drives that were flown to processing centres in Boston, US and Germany.
Black holes are very far away so taking a photo of one is no easy task! Black holes are actually supposed to be invisible but they can give off a shadow when they interact with material around them.
We don’t know about you but that’s a lot of science this week! But what an amazing discovery!
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