Wonderful news and a great article. It would be nice if the NYT spent some time on the young female scientist whose algorithm made this composite photograph possible. One way to keep women out of STEM disciplines is to have them conveniently forgotten when they do world-changing work. Do better NYT.
17
An amazing achievement. I wonder what caused the black hole to be oriented in that specific plain? If they could take a shot at 90 degrees from this shot would it still look like a ring? Is the hole part like a sphere or like a disk?
6
Based on this image, what does 3D version look like?
5
I don't think it resembles the Eye of Sauron very much: and the Eye of Sauron wasn't about the implacable power of nature, either. More like the failed attempt to resist the power of nature, if anything. As for the picture, why not say it looks like a piece of delicious cherry candy? Very attractive!
Other than that, it's a good article...
2
Not to nitpick, but this is an assembled image of radio wave emissions, not a photograph.
Any colors , e.g. orange , yellow are chosen by the presenters. The image could have been green and purple, but those were not the chosen colors.
7
Once again, NYT neglects to mention a key woman in this story. Dr. Katie Bouman. Shame on you.
11
It is truly wonderful. To whom it may concern, thank you for the knowledge, the pleasure and the memory. It's good to be reminded that homo sapiens is still worthy of the epithet "sapiens".
5
So cool. Beyond cool.
Love, appreciate articles like this, always a good reminder that we are less than the most insignificant specks and we're just passing through oh so briefly.
In other words: Perspective.
5
Please ask the scientists of the Event Horizon Telescope project how they avoided confirmation bias. Their simulations for what to expect were probably based on Einstein’s field equations being correct. Did their findings fit Einstein’s theory exactly, because that would confirm their bias that the equations are correct. What did they do to avoid confirmation bias?
1
This isn't a simulation. It's the real deal and they are already quoted as saying "Einstein was correct". Because he was, or else we wouldn't have this image.
3
https://youtu.be/BIvezCVcsYs
This YouTube video of a TED talk a year or two ago by the scientist who developed the algorithm for converting the raw data into an image explains how such bias in the image reconstruction was avoided. It’s fascinating and pretty convincing.
8
Simply amazing! What a time to be alive and a spectator to this incredible discovery. Humbling beyond description.
6
Is it coincidence that the hole appears to be on a plane that's perpendicular to the camera. Would it be possible to look at a black hole from the side (and see an oblong shape of light without the hole in the middle)?
3
Taking from theories on multiverses, my best guess would be that another universe of sorts is on the “other side” of a black hole. Giving this some thought last night, it seemed to make sense to me that black holes are kind of like regurgitating gateways akin to - and in a laughable sense - one type of garbage in, another type of garbage out. For conservationists, one can rephrase it to recycling or repurposing one type of universe to another...lol. I gather many feel comfortable with such a concept in that everything never really disappears, but there still remain questions such as, where did everything come from (many would say G-d) and will everything eventually decay leaving a void everywhere? But, if a void is everywhere, is that everything or nothing? And, if it’s nothing, how can that be? What is nothing? Perhaps the multiverse/universe/G-d prevents the existence of nothing via the mechanics within black holes. If so, they would truly be holy. Ain’t that a kick in the pants?
3
I think this is so cool for scientists all over the world. I know black holes have sort of been a mystery for the longest time, but it's so interesting to see them able to take a picture of one, and to be making scientific history. I love how it resembles a circle of fire, or a glazed donut, and it looks very interesting.
2
@sam onella I was wondering if it's truly shaped like a donut (in a flat plane) or is it a sphere that we can't look directly at? Is the emptiness a sphere or a disk?
2
Why 55Million light-years away Messier 87(M87) instead of nearest major 2.5 million light years Andromeda Galaxy?
7
The Fact that we got this picture is amazing but just finding out that a black hole is real is astonishing.
4
Times: "The image offered a final, ringing affirmation of an idea so disturbing that even Einstein, from whose equations black holes emerged, was loath to accept it."
That's very misleading. Einstein published a paper in 1939 in which he attempted to *prove* that black holes cannot exist. Einstein concluded:
'The essential result of this investigation is a clear understanding as to why the "Schwarzschild singularities" do not exist in physical reality.'
The paper is highly technical, but here is a citation:
Einstein, Albert. “On a Stationary System With Spherical Symmetry Consisting of Many Gravitating Masses.”
Annals of Mathematics, vol. 40, no. 4, 1939, pp. 922–936.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1968902.
NB: "Schwarzschild singularity" is the term that was used before John Wheeler starting using "black hole".
3
Like the Higgs Boson discovery?
1
I believe Einstein had a bigger problem with Quantum Mechanics than he did with black holes.
"I believe Einstein had a bigger problem with Quantum Mechanics than he did with black holes."
Einstein wrote in a 1939 paper:
"The essential result of this investigation is a clear understanding as to why the 'Schwarzschild singularities' do not exist in physical reality."
That quote can be found in several sources. See, for example:
"Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" by Kip S. Thorne.
NB: "Schwarzschild singularity" is the term that was used before John Wheeler starting using "black hole".
why was Katie Bouman left out of this report? why did you choose non-technical quotes for the only female astrophysicists quoted?
8
@Amy Sheridan That was my first thought as I read the article and got more and more into it. Dennis Overbye, can't imagine why there was not even a slight reference to Dr. Bouman. It's even been on FB.
2
@AmySheridan : I glad I decided to read the comments else I would have remained ignorant about Ms.Katie Bouman. Want to hazard a guess as to why her name was omitted? I get the impression from you that she made a most invaluable contribution to the "event" but appears to have been swallowed up by the monster in the "horizon". I believe that that noxious monster will never die.
2
The "donut" of smoke/gas seems perfectly positioned so we can see the black hole through the "donut." Would someone viewing this black hole from a significantly different angle (side view relative to our view) see only the "donut" and not the black hole?
4
Seems to make sense, but something tells me we’re missing a point or two about the nature of black holes and are wrong with our sensibilities.
In an (imaginary) straight line from earth into outer space, it would not be affected by magnetic forces, nor electrical forces, nor by any other force. Therefore this imaginary straight line would go on forever, and is therefore proof of infinity. Infinity is proof that God is the sole creator of all. Earth scientists wish to discredit the truth of God by saying that infinity does not exist because it is acted upon by external electrical/magnetic forces and that the entire universe begins in point A....it bends, and then ends in point B. Earth scientists say they know the exact billionth of a second that the universe was created and also the exact location where the (big bang) occurred. Yet using the same addage created by scientists which says that the movement or creation or interaction of solids/chemicals and other forces requires outside forces to act upon them in order to move or be created. But scientists also say that in the beginning there was nothing, not light, not darkness, not solid, not liquid, nothing electrical, not sound, totally empty devoid......nothing existed. So how could a solid be created from nothing, without any outside force?
Physicist say that the end result be physically meaningful. Yet there are some theoretical circumstances where the end result is infinity....so therefore we are back to black holes in our heads.
This is unreal. It just makes me think how insignificant we are. We are merely a speck, in the scheme of things.
3
So. It just looks like a picture of a black hole. How much did it cost? Could that money be put to more humane use?
1
@Cold Eye All of human achievement could just as easily have been exchanged for meals for the poor, if you think about it. Why hire Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel instead of leaving the ceiling blank and giving the money to the poor?
4
Supermassive oversight that the article doesn't give any credit to the contributions of Dr. Katie Bouman. Three years ago, Dr. Bouman, now 29, created an algorithm that collects data from telescopes across the world to stitch together a photograph of the phenomenon which is 55 million light years away from Earth. Her work essentially turned Earth into a virtual telescope and led to a creation of an algorithm that helped capture the first ever image of a black hole. Congratulations to Dr. Bouman - just amazing work! How about the NYT doing a profile on Dr. Bouman?
13
For those who don't know, 1 light year's distance is the better part of 6 trillion miles away.
Considering the radiation/energy that allowed this image sprang from something(s) more than 320 trillion -- 320,000,000,000,000,000 -- miles away, just the fact that we have telescopes that can "see" that far is astounding.
How many (current) earth years would it take an average person to walk there? Compare that to how long it takes you to walk to work, school, the nearest market, your next door neighbor's home, to your child's or elderly parent's bedside.....
16
@Amazed
Even more amazing your math is out by a factor of 1 million.
The black hole is 58 MILLION light years away: therefore your sum should be 6 trillion times 58 million, not just times 58...
Now that number is too large for my calculator, but beggars belief... unless I have figured it wrong after all.
What do you think?
3
Entirely possible the math is off. If, so, all the more amazing and humbling.
2
It's a huge accomplishment by a team of people who each had a part to play. Not just one person from Caltech and another from MIT. I hope the work continues (can they detect it spinning? can they detect others?). I also hope people start observing M87 with their own telescopes to share (again) with their neighbors just how difficult this was to do
1
This is a great read. I love Astronomy and to see a black hole in its true beauty is amazing. Awesome journalism and great use of historical theories. Thank you.
2
It is an inspirational story and an uplifting day as compare to almost daily negative headline story. It tells us that humanity and science are well and alive.
3
How has Dr. Katie Bouman, the fundamental piece of this discovery, not mentioned in this article once?
5
"... the fundamental piece of this discovery ..."
There are *dozens* of authors on the papers. And there were *four* separate imaging teams. See the imaging paper, which is online:
"5.1. Imaging Procedure and Team Structure"
"We subdivided our first M87 imaging efforts into four separate imaging teams. The teams were blind to each others' work, prohibited from discussing their imaging results and even from discussing aspects of the data that might influence imaging (e.g., which stations or data might be of poor quality). ..."
First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. IV. Imaging the Central Supermassive Black Hole
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 875, Number 1
Published 2019 April 10
(Follow the link in the article.)
3
Doesn’t make sense. Supposedly Black holes don’t allow any light to escape. How did they manage to take an image of it? I don’t think photography works without light. And if the light surrounding black hole was captured in photo then it means that black hole is not as powerful as it is supposed to be (absorbing all the light). Relativity should explain. We are calling black hole as black hole relative to something else.
1
Shriniwas, this image was not taken with an optical telescope. It was taken using radio telescopes, spread across the earth. The black hole is at the center of the event horizon, the black middle of this image. You are right, the black hole is dark, but the gas surrounding it is heated to extreme temperatures, and does radiate light.
4
'Gravity does not cause people to fall in love'
- Albert E.
10
@Ramesh G Search out Anne Hathaway's speech about love as a force of physics and nature in Intersteller
5
I never said that
16
@Ramesh G
Levity, however, often does.
7
Please do inclusive journalism. No mention of Katie Bownman, plenty random quotes from the usual male suspects, no random quotes from women or POC researchers!
5
"... no random quotes from women ..."
Janna Levin, Sera Markoff, and Priyamvada Natarajan are quoted.
"... or POC researchers!"
See above.
3
This verification by photographic evidence of black holes had me thinking about the distance and span of time that has passed in observing this phenomenon. Our little planet is so cloistered and far from the hip and happening scene of Messier 87. We are a wallflower at the most insane party of the century.
I like that the they took this photo with a coordinated system of state-of-the-art telescopes "the size of the earth" and then measured it with . . . a ruler. :)
2
I like that too, but by definition, what you see in not a "photo"graph.
Without the power math the three greatest scientific theories so far—Einstein’s general relativity, quantum mechanics, and Darwin’s evolution—wouldn’t have been possible.
One planet. One people. One path to total freedom.
💕 ☮ 🌎 🌌
"Without the power math ... Darwin’s evolution—wouldn’t have been possible."
Darwin uses hardly any math, and where he does, it is elementary and informal:
"Linnaeus has calculated that if an annual plant produced only two seeds—and there is no plant so unproductive as this—and their seedlings next year produced two, and so on, then in twenty years there would be a million plants." (On the Origin of Species)
That's an informal description of an exponential growth function.
Why doesn’t the article doesn't mention Katie Bouman who led the creation of the algorithm that enabled this photo to exist?
4
While the achievement defies "amazing," I found it disappointing that the group that pulled this off failed to better explain what we were looking at.
First, I never saw a single image of Galaxy M87 in any of the coverage. It would have been nice to associate the Black Hole with an picture of its host galaxy. M87 is not like most galaxies after all. Neither did the announcement give any details of the size of M87 other then to say it is a "massive galaxy." Massive indeed with about 1 trillion stars, 10 times the number of Stars in our Milky Way.
Worse they failed to explain and put in perspective what we are actually looking at in the picture of the Supermassive Black Hole ... such as:
- That black hole at the center has a diameter of a whopping 25 billion miles, 6 times the diameter of Neptune's orbit around the Sun.
- There was little or no information about what was in that glowing Halo around the black hole. The Halo itself appeared to be billions of miles thick with some areas with greater intensity than others.
Was this Halo made up of energy only? Does it represent matter falling into the Black Hole? If so, how much matter is present in that Halo? How many solar masses would that be?
- Based on the energy/matter observed, how fast is this Black Hole growing in terms of Solar Masses per year?
- How come we did not see the amazing jet of energy that the Black Hole sends out some 5,000 light years into space?
1
If, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, won't the black holes end up releasing that matter somehow?
The next ‘Big Bang’?
1
... the name you are looking for is katie bouman, caltech.
3
Slight correction -- LIGO detected the collision of two neutron stars, not two black holes. It confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, as predicted by Einstein.
1
@David Krall, LIGO website says it's 2 Black Holes. https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/what-are-gw
In response to those readers opposed to the "mysticism" of this article on the black hole: I, for one, am grateful to read journalism that that connects our deeper human experience to the factual discoveries of empirical science.
As Carl Jung noted, the human collective unconscious contains a rich library of archetypes, of which "the Eye of Sauron" and "malevolent forces" are only several. Exploring these archetypes, especially through images, adds to the richness of our human experience.
Modern science has debunked the cold, unfounded hypothesis of hard core 20th century scientific materialism. This "belief" posits that the cosmos is random, inert, soulless, unconscious, and composed only of dead matter. Scientific materialism is a bitter and despairing philosophy that is not aligned with tens of thousands of years of human cultural experience that finds us deeply connected to nature, to the stars, and to the gods.
The findings of quantum physics (especially non-local communication or Einstein's "spooky action at a distance") and the more recent findings of cognitive neuroscience show that consciousness likely exists beyond the confines of chemical processes in our brains.
Let the re-enchantment of the cosmos continue to flower, even in the pages of the New York Times. Or, if that is too mystical for some of you, at least let us enjoy the poetic aspects of these important discoveries and experience awe.
49
The reason readers are complaining is that they clearly sense that the language of the article attempts to manipulate their emotions. That is not what science reporting (or reporting in general, except possibly the opinion section) is about.
Science is inspiring and uplifting, yes, and perhaps one shouldn’t begrudge this journalist his excitement and his wish to share it with others through writing. But at the end of the day the use of loaded, emotional, cliche-ridden language is antithetical to the mission of science, which is to describe reality accurately and objectively. And it does a disservice to the readers who simply wish be to informed about the latest developments and instead find themselves struggling to filter out what is essentially noise dredged out from the bottom of the barrel of humanity’s collective subconscious. Smoke from God’s computer? Give us a break, please, and report the facts.
10
"Modern science has debunked the cold, unfounded hypothesis of hard core 20th century scientific materialism."
That's incoherent -- you are committing a category error. "Science" cannot debunk a philosophical position. And "scientific materialism" is a pejorative term.
"... let us enjoy the poetic aspects of these important discoveries and experience awe."
You could do that without speciously ranting about "scientific materialism".
4
@Alice In Wonderland
This is a very thoughtful and insightful response; please write more!
I remain skeptical. According to one of the imaging experts, there are an infinite number of visual displays that can fit the data produced by all these radio telescopes. That leaves me wondering how much the imaging teams had to massage the data with the equations of Einstein and others to produce an image that fit the math (or Peter Jackson's imagination), thus making their picture a visual tautology of the mathematical concept. Until I hear a convincing explanation, I'm sticking with the Woody Allen Rule, based on his skepticism of the Dead Sea Scrolls because the word "Oldsmobile" appears three time.
1
"Until I hear a convincing explanation, ..."
The imaging paper is online, so that would be the ideal place to start. In particular, see:
"5.1. Imaging Procedure and Team Structure"
"We subdivided our first M87 imaging efforts into four separate imaging teams. The teams were blind to each others' work, prohibited from discussing their imaging results and even from discussing aspects of the data that might influence imaging (e.g., which stations or data might be of poor quality). ..."
First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. IV. Imaging the Central Supermassive Black Hole
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 875, Number 1
Published 2019 April 10
(Follow the link in the article.)
1
Looks like I am not the only person whose first thought was “Krispy Kreme!”
Seriously, I am floored by the beauty of both concept and photo: the rendering of the invisible visible. Science has given us the ultimate oxymoron, a metaphor for the resolution of apparent paradoxes, insight into the deepest, mysterious complexities and understanding of events distant in time and space, that are achieved by research and experiment.
Science and art are humanity’s greatest achievements and, as this beautiful photo demonstrates, one folds into the other.
1
Possibly the most awe-inspiring accomplishment/discovery of the 21st century, it brings to mind Rilke's 7th Duino Elegy:
O, be astonished, Angel, since we are this,
O tell them, O great one, that we could achieve this: my breath is too slight for this praising. So, after all, we have not
failed to make use of these spaces, these generous ones,
our spaces. (How frighteningly vast they must be,
when they are not overfull of our feelings, after thousands of years.)
2
Katie Bouman is the amazing woman who came up with the algorithm needed to capture this photo we're all amazed by right now. Props to her for being brilliant.
7
In this month where we're all going to be reciting old tales and myths, and many are going to be taking them seriously, and some of us will just sigh and go along with the charade (or not), and in this year, in which it's almost impossible to watch the news because it's so upsetting, it's heartening to have some good news about human accomplishments. We own such a debt to Einstein, his vision and his imagination. Yet, even he was skeptical that black holes existed. I can't even fathom the concept of something with a mass 7 billion times that of the sun that bends space and time to the point of no return. Physicists are the high-priests of our day.
1
Stop and think how lucky we are to be on a planet that sustains life in a perfect distance from the Sun, and also a Solar System that is at the outer edge of the Milky Way so we can observe the Universe from a better vantage point.
We are lucky... let's not blow it.
38
Kind of surprising that the reported says that astronomers “finally” got a picture. I can’t even comprehend the achievement and what it took.
6
And of course the description of how this “image” was assembled really stretches the meaning of the word “see”.
4
Awesome!!! Now let’s commit more money for NASA and astronomy.
18
“See” is an interesting verb, since humans use light to “see”—
Or some type of particle (like an electron with an electron microscope).
If your means of “seeing” is pulled into the “black hole”, then what have you “seen”?
3
It would be nice to have an explanation of the red corona around the black hole. I realize that this this not an optical observation and the red color is a digital representation of some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. What portion though? Whaat is the nature of what we are looking at?
3
Amazing. And this writing is amazing too!
7
Beside myself with excitement. Suddenly everything else seems trivial.
6
Just wondering why the hole appears to be perfectly circular, when the energy around it appears brighter / stronger on the lower half.
2
huh I honestly thought that black holes were always an accepted fact.
My new desktop wallpaper. Stunning.
3
My first thought was a smoldering campfire. If I understand correctly black holes bring life not death. We live a solar system that is part of a galaxy. It seems that galaxies form around black holes. Our black hole (in our galaxy) is part of our existence.
5
I didn't go and try to find if anybody asked, but, besides the joy I felt at hearing this positive piece of news, I wondered: why did the astronomers go for such far away target? Why not try to get an image of the black hole in our galaxy?
It seems that a huge black hole in a galaxy 55 million light-years away from us would still be much harder to see than the one in our own galaxy.
Other than that, a huge bravo to all the people who made this possible. You deserve the highest praise for this achievement.
3
It could be useful to mention the role of the Indian astrophysicist S. Chandrasekhar in theoretically predicting the existence of the black hole in about 1930, but being publicly ridiculed by the top astrophysicist at the time, Arthur Eddington, who would much later, of course, proved to be wrong.
9
The Washington Post I believe offered up an extended version of the complicated details of how this blackhole picture came about. It also demonstrates to the layperson, however, how far science and technology has to go in order to truly capture the imagination of the public and what they fantasize as the amazing experiences they already witness via the fiction of the marvel of science fiction movies of today. The gap between reality and the imagination of fiction novelists, screenwriters, and special effect artists has appeared to have been narrowing and yet there is the actual realization that the gap may be much farther apart in reality. Speculative science of the likes of Kip Thorne remains decades perhaps hundreds of years in the future and the humans alive today may be offered only a fuzzy glimpse of the fantastic future of tomorrow that await a future generation if the world itself can hang on for that long.
3
This is one of the best-written articles I have ever seen in a newspaper -- prose worthy of the milestone occasion. Well done, Mr. Overbye.
14
A very thrilling moment for astronomers and scientists everywhere! We could finally see what a black hole looks like, although the picture's a bit blurry, this is still a phenomenal photograph that will probably be printed in science textbooks in the years to come.
The galaxy is infinite, it acts in all sorts of mysterious ways, one that exceeds mankind's knowledge. I certainly hope this picture could help us in discovering its secrets.
2
Astrophysicists are using the terms - telescope array, image and seeing - in a problematic way. The figure of the black hole is not an optical image. It is a "derived image" constructed from captured radio signals using an array of parabolic radio antennas simultaneously pointed at the black hole. As noted in the article, the antennas are synchronized by atomic clocks. But, the large antennas can be affected by strong winds which requires motion compensation in the computer calculations.
People and governments love big science, eg, this project, manned and unmanned outer space missions, electron accelerators, etc. How many heavy particles do we have to find indirect evidence of in multi-billion dollar electron accelerators before we realize that we cannot penetrate any further into the subatomic world? The same question applies to black holes. It's time to acknowledge the inherent limitations of big science and start redirecting the monies to societal needs.
8
I couldn’t disagree more.
“Big science” stories like this are about pushing the frontier of what’s known and unknown. Society benefits from that in numerous ways, one being the opportunity to rise above our petty politics and look toward a better tomorrow.
15
@Ben Hopper
If we don't fix our politics, and soon, there may not be any tomorrow!
What good is it to be all intellectual as we fry the planet to a crisp and we all become crispy critters?
2
@Joel Ii
Amen.
Health, food, water, for our fellow creatures comes to mind.
3
The popular photo, ‘Earth-rise,’ when it was new, was culturally out-flanked by the film, ‘2001’ and its depictions of space. It was a literal portrait of a familiar cartography of shapes and colors. What gives merit to the first photo of a black hole is that not only is it an imperceptible entity, it also uses the medium photography to it’s highest technical application and invention to represent what is otherwise a highly theoretical mathematical guess.
The picture is not a representation which only confirms the familiar, rather it is a proof of the ability of the human mind to pierce the darkness.
6
An amazing experiment. Kudos to all the team and to the all the data nerds like Katie Bouman.
The amount of coordination by people world wide in Chile, Mexico, Hawaii, South Pole to make the network of radio telescopes work harmoniously to very fine tolerances of motion generating approximately 1,500 tera bytes of signals data is astounding.
We are all under the same sky on a tiny planet wounded by greed, made ignoble by ignorance and yet there is hope for new understanding.
7
The hight of my mathematical accomplishment was solving a quadratic equation.
How DO these people figure out these astonishing concepts.
Are humans the most intelligent creatures in the universe ?
We rock.
7
"How DO these people figure out these astonishing concepts."
I'm not sure what you really want to know, but this book is about some of the contributors to the Event Horizon Telescope project:
"Einstein's shadow : a black hole, a band of astronomers, and the quest to see the unseeable" by Seth Fletcher.
And there are numerous biographies of Einstein. See, for example:
"Einstein : his life and universe" by Walter Isaacson.
Check your library.
1
I think I did a 3 x 3 quadratic equation for my AC Electronics class; then I got a HP 15 C which could do a 64 x 64 quadratic… is when I realized I couldn’t even imagine those “imaginary“ numbers. A. BLACK HOLE? FUGET-ABOUTET!
1
My question is - why are black holes always visualized as 2-dimensional objects? Shouldn't they be 3-d? If so, then wouldn't the light around them form a sphere, not a ring? But then - if there are simple reasons for the 2-d picture (likely related to the axis of rotation of the black hole), how lucky was this image? What would one look like if its axis of rotation was tilted 90 degrees from the line from us to it? - just a line of light?
2
"why are black holes always visualized as 2-dimensional objects?"
Because it is easier to illustrate a gravitational field in 2D.
"Shouldn't they be 3-d?"
Yes, but you have to figure out how to illustrate a 3D gravitational field in a 2D image.
"If so, then wouldn't the light around them form a sphere, not a ring?"
Perhaps, but you need to distinguish the 3D gravitational field around the black hole and the photons that we can see.
We can't see every photon that is passing by and around the black hole. We can only see the photons that travel in our direction.
As for the image, there are no photons emitted by the black hole or reflected from it. What the image shows is the accretion disk around the black hole. The accretion disk radiates photons and some of those photons travel in our direction.
What makes the image difficult to interpret is that some of the photons on the "back" side of the black hole actually travel around the black hole and travel toward us. That's because photons follow paths in a gravitational field. (I hope the Times will put together a graphic showing the trajectories of photons traveling around and past a black hole.)
3
Never thought that I would see this in my lifetime. Now get ready to travel into the future!
1
When I read articles like this I'm always amazed at how right Einstein was and how unbelievable it was that he figured all this out. Almost like he was placed here by the divinity to give us a clue.
15
Or had already experienced today.
2
@GRR
Einstein didn't believe in black holes--he thought nature would somehow prevent the formation of such singular objects.
1
@GRR And Einstein figured all this out with his imagination, just by thinking.
1
I can see how everything could just disappear into that donut hole, but what I want to know is what’s behind that donut? Who wants to bet whatever is there is looking at the same donut and wondering the same thing? Don’t we have enough immigration problems as it is on earth already?
3
“The image emerged from two years of computer analysis of observations from a network of radio antennas called the Event Horizon Telescope. In all, eight radio observatories on six mountains and four continents observed the galaxy in Virgo on and off for 10 days in April 2017.”
Historic announcement & timing today, as Jupiter makes its retrograde station: a Jupiterian feat ushering in a mythology of global collaboration between Heaven & Earth: the Hieros Gamos.
https://hierosgamosjournal.wordpress.com/history-of-the-hieros-gamos/
1
Is it just me, or is that thing smiling at us with a little touch of evil intent?
3
I think it’s just you. ;)
Will this be allowed? I hope so....and I’m not a troll. Anyway, we can not deny this was largely a team effort but a very positive achievement in the fields of science and history especially women’s history. Einstein and HAWKINGS were only a part of the (no pun intended) equation spearheaded by a woman, Katie Bouman!
However, funding for this study may have not been possible at all if it weren’t for the Trump administration putting funding back into NASA.
Will black holes eventually suck so much in that theyll join together and cause a new big bang?
The slogan of black holes everywhere: All Mine!!!
2
I have no deep scientific knowledge but I am both elated at this discovery and curious about the questions that now arise from this finding.
I wonder if "black holes" can be qualified and quantified. Is there only one type of black hole or is there a structure that is scientifically identified as a "black hole" with variations? And, do black holes grow and, or, diminish in size and structure over a time period?
Maybe I need to do more research!
"I wonder ..."
There are several books for general readers on black holes.
"Maybe I need to do more research!"
All you need is a library card. :-)
1
Ya gotta love science!
7
I’m pleased they found this in the Constellation Virgo. We are always fond of tidying up.
9
The picture of the Black Hole is simply INCREDIBLE! After all the despair we have fallen into, I feel once again proud to belong to the race of homo sapiens. I hope this picture brought about by humans all over the globe symbolizes the unity and humanity on Earth. Wars, borders, religions that divide seem so unnecessary, petty and irrelevant.
7
Why is one side lighter than the other?
1
awesome achievement and Dennis pieces are always filled with intresting details. as an engineer how things actually works in practice is enlightening.
still, I cant say if its just the fuzziness of the image but in reality what does really it TELL us -besides black holes are probably round? its nice that they can infer rotation and the accretion disk is perpendicular to our observation, but what are we actually getting out here? any insights into again, how things actually work near the horizon? anything about how/why gases are ejected from the area near the horizon and perpendicular seemingly to plane of the hole?
anything about gravitational fields or the thermal character near the hole??? c'mon now, just give me something.....
5
@sam This is the first look into the central engine that generates the enormous energies put out by quasars, radio galaxies and other so-called active galactic nuclei. It all starts down here at the edge of oblivion in this maelstrom of hot gas, gravity, magnetic fields and otherworldly pressures and reaches out to the far reaches of the galaxy and beyond in the form of jets going almost the speed of light and lobes of radio energy and shock waves that blow gas of galaxies or even out of entire clusters of them, preventing stars from forming. So black holes, blowing hot and cold, through these mechanisms control the growth and structure of galaxies. It all starts in the accretion disk, the doughnut of doom.
12
Wow! This is fascinating! And fossils of a new hominid species were discovered in the Philippines! Yay science!
3
Meanwhile we still referencing the Bible
3
@Ed aka "The Goat Herders Guide to the Universe".
1
I agree with Yael's, below:
The theorized Big Bang sure sounds an awful lot like the original Hebrew "In a beginning..."
Either modern physicists unwittingly allowed common creation stories to shape their interpretations of data or thinking in crafting their theories, or those goat herders were on to something, at least at the beginning...
1
The statement below is an honest attempt at poetic expression by astrophysicist Avery Broderick, a team member of Event Horizon. He sees aesthetics and science blending beautifully in the “Einstein description of gravity”.
AVERY BRODERICK: “Sometimes the math looks ugly!
But really there’s a strong aesthetic in theoretical physics generally! And the Einstein equations are beautiful!
And so often in my experience nature wants to be beautiful. And that’s one of the striking elements about the Einstein equations-about the Einstein description of gravity; it is fundamentally one of the most beautiful theories that we have.
But I can’t lie to you, the most exciting thing we could possibly do it would be to supplant Einstein. To find that in this extreme gravitational laboratory [of black hole M87] that there’s something a little new.
There are mysteries around black holes!”
Apr 10, 2019: Avery Broderick, Event Horizon team member, at news conference at the National Science Foundation.
2
Time for a 2nd Nobel Prize in Physics
for Albert Einstein!...
He received
the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921/22
for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.
That work, by itself,
changed the world....
But he didn't stop there.
It has been proposed that
Albert Einstein could/should have received
at least seven (7!) Nobel Prizes in Physics
for his various theories,,,
What a wonderful day to be alive,
today :-)
SFer
San Francisco
5
Is there an edge view to this doughnut or is it he same regardless?
Looking at this big news, I just imagine that there may be a star like our earth near the black hole and equally civilized people there are desperately struggling how to stop their earth being trapped within 50 years.
Awesome, fabulous scientific achievement, made possible by the best minds around the globe.
Does anyone else see the eye of Sauron?
3
“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”
“I’m sorry Dave. I can’t do that.”
3
The data from the South Pole could not arrive before December 2017, Dr. Doeleman said in an interview, “because it was Antarctic winter, when nothing could go in or out.”
A white hole.
6
Guys...this is clearly just a screenshot of the eye of Sauron with a blur filter.
1
I'm curious, are those longer arms heading top left and lower right jets?
Aw congrats Einstein you were right again :)
2
Surprised???.....Quran has detailed the same over the last 1400yrs.
[Quran 86.1-3] And the heaven and the "Knocker" (Tarek in Arabic طارق) How could you know about the "Knocker"? The piercing star (Thakeb in Arabic).”
The Arabic word "Thukb” means a hole; "Thakeb” means the one who makes the hole. The Quran is describing a knocking star that makes a hole.
1
Takis can get stuck in there?
1
On Nov 20, 1992, the Times published a picture on its front page captioned "First Look At A Black Hole." The image, from a PRE-repaired Hubble Space Telescope, was of a small region in the nucleus of the galaxy NGC 4261 that was purported to be the accretion disk surrounding a giant black hole at the center.
While the full inside article was somewhat more circumspect (the headline to the full article read, "Hubble Photographs Hint at Presence of Black Hole"), and although the scale is immensely smaller by several orders of magnitude, I am struck by the remarkable similarity of the images.
In many ways, even though the Times version of the 1992 image was published before the esteemed "Grey Lady" introduced the use of color to her pages, the earlier image actually strikes me as being slightly more evocative, perhaps because in the Hubble image, the disk is seen at a significant angle, while today's release shows the black hole and surrounding inner disk apparently almost face-on.
1
fake news, fake science...that's an out of focus phone photo of a Krispy Kreme donut fresh off the conveyor belt...I seen and eaten many and know one when I see it...
3
To be more specific—and scientific—it looks just like a glazed KK doughnut.
It may, however, be a KK doughnut surrounded by anti-matter. Which, as we all know, gobbles up everything around it.
A carved pumpkin with a black nose and an insidious smile?
2
Should I be more impressed that the black hole ‘looks’ like, um, a black hole ?
2
black hole haiku
how on earth photons
from millions of years ago
tingled spines today!
7
Dear EDs ~
Poor poetry is no excuse for lack of science.
~ a reader
Definitely #1 Most Glamorous way to die: get sucked into one-way portal to eternity. To the extent that I can understand what a black hole even is, I am putting this item on my bucket list. thank you, scientists, for reminding me that I know nothing. <3
3
EYE OF SAURON HAS BEEN FOUND!
-- News at 11:00
And no one feels the need to explain how it is possible to capture an "image" of an entity that by definition does not allow light to escape from beyond its event horizon?
As far as I can tell, what we have a picture of is the absence of stuff where stuff should be. Which is as it should be, when you think about it.
Scientists around the world beautifully collaborate on projects like this. Yes, there is competition among them but basically they are looking for the most intense and brilliant features of Knowledge that ultimately transforms the way we think about ourself.
Now if only we had the capacity and integrity to raise the level of collaboration of scientists into the all too frequently self-serving and opportunistic political circles that divide nations into have-havenots, and continue disease and low education standards in many parts of the planet.
8
One comment, and one question:
Reading this article, my response at seeing the myriad ads that show up in my electronic subscription was one of overwhelming dismissiveness. Who cares what shoes are the most glam, or car the most stylish, after a glimpse of the universe?
And: is anyone else confused by the description of a donut or disc that is facing earth (was that just a lucky coincidence? Would the picture have been so pretty otherwise?), but says the disc is brightest at the bottom where matter is moving in a direction towards us? If the donut is facing us, how is this possible?
2
This is a big day of centuries in man's quest for knowledge.
Like the Pine Tree and Corn plants grow according to gravity, this representation of a Black hole which displays a magnetism so intense that it absorbs energy, as we perceive it, in a polar oriented equatorial pattern, proves that gravity is magnetic attraction between matter and energy from this black hole to the atom.
Imagine an amorphous nucleus of pure matter lacking void.
The conversion of mass and energy to pure matter occurs at the surface exactly opposite to nuclear conversion of mass to energy. A Black hole must be pure matter lacking energy at true absolute zero temperature, maybe lower if possible. Space is infinitely dense. It's pure gravity. It's pure flux.
Energy divided by the speed of light squared equals mass times the speed of light squared divided by the speed of light squared.
Energy equals matter. It's the purest form of magnetism as mass. It's gravity.
Magnetic Flux is the key to gravity. It's not a "Fabric of space" portrayed as a pretty picture portraying it's effects. What if we could conceptualize flux without the filings or the bending light?
I have claimed in the past that Flux is instantaneously existing along its lines and lack thereof, unlike the speed of light which occurs in units of time. Flux is instant and a potential new frontier of scientific exploration to interstellar communication and mass/energy experiments.
A black hole is pure mass absent energy.
Utter darkness surrounded by light. Almost as stunning as the photo of earth from the moon. To all the people around the world who worked together to make this happen Thank you and congratulations.
15
Isn't "photograph" a figure of speech given this is imaging of radio transmissions?
7
Yes, it should be considered imaging, as it's generated from data, and not an actual snap shot. Photographs don't necessarily have to be visible light though.
4
@Moses Khaet
Since "photo" comes from the Greek for "light" I think you are absolutely right.
God looking back at us.
6
One of G-d’s looking glasses, I think is a more accurate description. Eh?
is Katie Bauman, the woman who invented the algorithm so this image can be taken mentioned anywhere on this article?
9
Perhaps the NYT will publish an article devoted to her work and contributions to this incredible moment in human history, as an act of restorative justice after failing to mention her at all.
6
Truly amazing and just mind blowing...
...I wonder how long it will take before this image becomes a trending political meme on Twitter...
Something tells me less time than 50 million light years...
4
This story should be at the top of today’s NY Times, befitting it’s historic human achievement.
Instead the Times lede again buys into one of Trump’s diversionary messes.
It’s worrying for 2020, that since 2016 the paper of record continues repeating it’s slavish coverage of every con Trump waves out there.
15
Not sure what others see in the image, but I see a Nobel Prize.
4
If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:2
4
Yes, Nolan's film "Interstellar" presented love as a gravitational-like force as well.
1
Frodo, we’re not in Kansas anymore!
3
I wish Paul Newman were alive, and Jackie Gleason
"It's all about the angle of the shot."
Messier objects are gifts. 87 really took the cake today.
2
Hmmm.
This color photo of The Black Hole will probably be the same rendition of William Barr's redacted copy of the Mueller Report.
One complete Redaction complete with Barr's system of color coding.
Light and mass enters it and it never comes out.
5
The image is not the big reveal here. Looks like a Krispy Kreme doughnut.
Many better images in 'artist's renditions'
Big news?
1. It exists (as a gateway to non existence)
2. Tantalizing possibility that these are border crossings for matter to become anti matter
3. Matter is recreated in a parallel universe
4. New universes and infinity
Life after death. Just not yours.
2
it is actually a glazed doughnut.
2
Why would you call it a "violent phenomenon"? The cosmos doesn't commit violence; humans do.
4
@alltatup Our earth was bombarded for its first billion years of existence by objects flying in from space.
3
How gullible we've become. A fuzzy circle of light around a dark center millions of light-years away could only possibly be a black hole? Talk about confirmatory bias. If you've been paying attention, you'll know that there are better, simpler, and more compelling answers to the physics problems that supposedly require such heroic theoretical inventions as black holes, dark matter, and dark energy. You won't read about them here, however.
1
So that's where all my socks went, down a black hole. Poets got here before us: The Planet of Lost Things, by Mark Strand.
2
I share in the awe of this moment.
Just one question I hope an expert still reading comments can answer:
Why is the accretion disk a disk and not a sphere?
Isn't the singularity's gravitational pull in 3 dimensions? Space isn't literally a mattress: flat. So it seems to me that matter and energy should be collapsing into the black hole from all directions, thus forming a spherical event horizon.
Can someone explain, please?
3
Because it’s spinning.
2
@JediProf
It can not be spherical. Einstein postulates 4 dimensions, space (3) with time (1). Space and time affects each other and that is why it is called spacetime. Not space and time. It is like the water swirling into the kitchen drain or flushing the toilet seeing the water swirling into the sewer. Matter and light swirls clockwise around the black hole called event horizon before it get suck to oblivion.
2
@JediProf
Good question... so I used the Google machine. It said a black hole is nearly spherical (if a non-rotating black hole it's a perfect sphere; if rotating then it's flattened at the poles -- oblate I think they called it.) But "yes" it pretty much a sphere. So I'm guessing the accretion "disk" is also really roughly spherical, but not sure. Interesting question.
Physics at the extremes is too crazy for me. General and special relativity are mind blowers. Quantum physics is totally counter-intuitive. Astronomical concepts like dark matter, dark energy, and the fact that the rate of expansion of the universe isn't slowing down but inexplicably accelerating! All mind blowers. And we're supposed to believe that an electron is a probability cloud and that if we try to determine the location of an electron, our attempt at observation changes what we're observing! WHAT?! (I think it's called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but don't quote me.) Also the pairing of sub-atomic particles that behave in tandem even when far apart is counter-intuitive. Mind bending -- an nobody knows why or how last I heard. It makes me feel like I'm in laloa land when the "experts" talk about such seemingly-ridiculous things. It's just nuts.
1
Could black holes, or the singularity be a sort of hologram or holographic "image" of the theorized Big Bang? If one cuts up a properly-made hologram, each piece of holographic film still contains the full image. I'm not sure if this continues ad infinitum, but it certainly does for at least several pairings down (1/2s to 1/4s to 1/8s... or even uneven divisions).
2
It is not possible to take a picture of the black hole. The picture is of the light around the black hole in the middle.
If one could take a picture of the black hole one would see what’s inside, but since even light doesn’t escape the gravitational forces of the black hole, one cannot ser what in it.
3
A little more on why separating the inputs across the globe enhances the signal, and the equations used to correlate the inputs, please. In the latter for instance, is this trail and error of what fits to make a recognizable image?
The photos accompanying this are stellar. On the telescope array, what are we looking at? Is that a cloud of swirling parts, like a cloud on Earth, and if so what can be made of--do we know-- its dynamics? In the Milky Way photo, exactly where is the center, and how do we know that? That's a reflection of Dr. Doelman right there, or is it coming from across the globe--what's going on in the photo? And remarkable that they are still using one of einstein's rulers to measure images on a piece of paper--or would you explain this a little bit more, please.
data generated in a new way that confirms data is relevant.
1
The element you don't know is the one you don't see.
The Black Hole is obviously pure matter absent energy that displays characteristics of magnetism by virtue of the last energy entering being focused heavily in a polar equatorial pattern. It's a super-super magnet of mass possibly pure magnetic flux of which we can not perceive except from it's effects. It is gravity in pure form.
1
Once again what I find as equally spectacular as the image itself is that astrophysicists have speculated for decades what an unobserved black hole would look like using only the physics and associated optical theories to buttress their ideas. This is not much different than the image posted year or so back of accreting planets and coalescing planetoids around a central star showing the birth of a solar system a long time ago and very far away.
The fact that in both instances the theories have panned out with direct, observational evidence delights me to no end as an illustration of just how powerful a tool science is and just how far along in our evolutionary development it has brought us as a species.
Thanks to all who brought us this very special moment.
5
Theoretically, (if) Energy is not lost, and,
Theoretically, (if) nothing escapes "black holes", then,
Theoretically, isn't it then, that the sum (mass calculations) of "black holes", (should) equal the "big bang" mass/sum, theoretically?
1
@Shanan Doah
I see two reasons why your "sum" is wrong:
1. It neglects the masses that are "outside" the black holes, such as our sun and its planets (as an example); and
2. Mass and energy can be interconverted according to the relation of Einstein, E = mc^2 (energy = mass times the speed of light squared), which means that the energy flowing in the universe needs to be taken into account as well.
3
(Part 2, clarification)
In fact, it's hard to know which way is which:
Ancient Homo sapiens intuiting the origins of our universe, or more modern theorists being influenced, unconsciously (professional meaning, not lay) influenced by the creation stories of the broader cultures into which they were born and in which they matured? (Having atheist family doesn't enough mitigate the broader anthropological forces)
1
Could be the generator of another "universe's" Bing Bang.
Makes intuitive sense, though I'm not a physicist.
Isn't it interesting, too, how the Big Bang idea, or at least the words used to describe it, so closely sound like Beresheet (aka Genesis): "In a beginning ..." (Note it does not say "the" beginning) all was void (nothing), then all of a sudden there was light (energy)... It's also remarkably like what we know of the beginning of human life: (relative) darkness into sudden and expanding light. In Spanish, a person does not "give birth" but "gives the light."
(Cue the dramatic music...)
2
"May the Force be with us"
But just in case it's not, avoid Messier 87.
6
Ha! I’m still laughing at this most astute observation! Indeed, it’s a neighborhood best not experienced in the first person! Reading Ratner’s Star right now. Your comment is spot On.
What an exciting time to be alive!
5
One of the most amazing images during my lifetime. Thanks to the grad students and post-docs. Up there with the moon landing of July 1969 and, of course, the 1969 NY Mets.
Puts all of our petty worries in perspective.
Thank you, scientists and dreamers.
Thank you, Einstein, Hawking, and anyone else who ever said: what if.
11
How about all of the female scientists, engineers, and theorists?
5
Like the surface tension of water, below the surface of a black hole, where energy changes to pure matter, must be the purest coldest of matter.
Study superconductivity at minus 473 Kelvin removing most environmental energy to observe passively, perhaps in the minimal gravity of space, what occurs. It's a difficult task but then compare your observations with those of today's news. It might even be a good experiment in a laser test bed for an imaginative physicist or bright engineering staff. You might have good observations of that which occurs at the magnets surface.
Bravo!
The recent detection of gravity waves and now the first image of a black hole.
Humanity should feel proud of these accomplishments of brute intellect.
On another more wry note... the mind of DJT is much like a black hole... zero volume at infinite density. And everything in orbit around it is doomed to eventual oblivion.
13
I have to admit that the timing of the announcement of this extraordinary human accomplishment out in deep space for its people on earth couldn't’ be more ironic considering the other day’d big news about what’s not being accomplished here at home where it really matters.
6
The universe and space-time are wondrous, astoundingly beautiful, and so mind-bendingly weird. Days like this are the best.
10
Curious how even those directly involved in the analysis of what is being viewed, seem not particular interested in explaining the why of the ability to see an opening in the fabric of spacetime, an opening into a void which because it is a void means it is unseeable, and the only reason we see the void is because it has drawn, and eternally continues to draw, all existence, at the inner edge of its gravitational force, (it spins clockwise exerting unimaginable and unknowable force) the event horizon, towards its center, causing matter, dark matter, everything, all existence, to emit energy as it approaches annihilation, or exits the void on the other side, into another spacetime existence.
When one accepts the idea that spacetime is a kind of undulating, twisting, turning, roiling, folding, sometimes ripping and tearing fabric or sheeting, spread throughout eternity, with no knowable beginning or end, from our decidedly immature earthly perspective, upon which all matter, all existence lives, then it becomes possible to dispense with the limits we impose on our consciousness.
I've always thought of spacetime as a skin, a fabric, some form of covering which all that is resides on, forever in flux, and this skin is the outer envelope of some massive interstellar construct, and within this (let's think of it as a bubble), construct resides the force of "creation", for want of a better word.
Black holes are the tears, the rips, the pathways, into the beginning.
2
@Mel Farrell
Black holes are the opposite of an opening in space-time. They are a collapse of space-time.
With regard to a black hole leading one or taking one anywhere, all I can do is to quote Bob Dylan: "You ain't going nowhere"
What a wonderful achievement. Thank you to all involved.
Makes my day to see Einstein's work continue to have effect.
It is too bad to also have an article here today about Trump's rollback of auto emission standards.
This wonderful scientific accomplishment should make all pay more heed and respect to what scientific claims about climate change.
4
Who knew at the center of the Milky Way was a glazed donut rather than a candy bar?
9
I don't want to compromise the thrill of this extraordinary moment by reporting my first unscientific thought on seeing the headline. But for those of you who had the same response, I'm here for it. We'll think what we think in the vast silence of the universe...
47
@Bill Prange
The oranges of the universe...
9
@Bill Prange.....it was one of those bolts of lightening where you know you nailed it. Hee,hee,hee.
4
@sue denim
They are incomparable.
1
Really disappointing that the article doesn't mention Katie Bouman who led the creation of the algorithm that enabled this photo to exist.
224
"... the article doesn't mention Katie Bouman ..."
Bouman and many others are mentioned in Seth Fletcher's book:
"Einstein's shadow : a black hole, a band of astronomers, and the quest to see the unseeable".
However, there are dozens of authors, including Bouman, listed on the paper linked in the article:
First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 875, Number 1
Published 2019 April 10
(NB: The authors are listed in alphabetical order.)
15
@Alison
there once was a nerd named Bouman
who wanted to be a great showman
she sifted through photons for rhythms
to spin a ring from algorithms
and now we all say - what a woman!
19
@WLP. Many more people will read this article than either the book or the larger article. Let's give credit where credit is due.
14
Amazing! I wish I understood even the tiniest fraction of this article!
9
When I was a child, I was enthralled with astronomy and could name quite a few constellations in the sky. But then I moved to Seattle and that put a damper on everything.
So, I understand this is a big deal to NASA types but I am more captivated by the fact that my pansies survived the brutal winter and are already blooming again. WOW!
Now, the most important question of the day. How long before Apple comes up with some kind of "dark hole meme" for their phones?
Can we give an array of telescopes a Pulitzer for spot photography?
3
@Simon DelMonte
I'd say this effort is worthy of the Nobel Peach prize. Transcends tribes, races, nations, politics, and even space-time.
1
So was it just lucky that the hole was oriented in a way that looked like a donut? Does it look the same from any angle?
2
This is absolutely amazing!
Science is humankind’s greatest achievement (along with music).
Think about it: The knowledge accumulated over innumerable lifetimes by both acclaimed and obscure scientists built the knowledge required to acquire this photograph.
That’s so hot ;)
5
@(not That) Dolly What about conceptual art? I drink..therfore I am.
Tiny little photonic survivors who narrowly escaped the gluttonous maw of a black hole traveled for eons through boundless space while carrying the memory of their brothers and sisters who weren't so lucky. Against all odds they reached our planet and, with their dying breaths shared their story and gave us a glimpse of their greatest nightmare so that we may better understand its infinite hunger.
8
This black hole emits relativistic jets. The theory says that hot gas falling into the black hole will heat up and emit x-rays. If hat were true we would see a band of light across the middle of the event horizon. Sagittarius A* should have this band across the middle if there is an accretion disk.
If I understand this picture the bottom is coming at us and is brighter but the top is moving away from us and dimmer.
Looking at Sagittarius A* from the galactic plane should show a band across the middle with a halo around it. What would be more interesting is if the accretion disk band is missing from this and other black holes like Sagittarius A*. How would a quasar emit limit in opposite polar directions without an accretion disk?
@PictureBook
While not a physicist, curved space-time is like the depression caused by bowling ball put onto a memory foam bed -- except, importantly, it will look the same from all directions (I think), in the same way that gravity is, mostly, the same in all directions radially away from the 'center. Anything going in will whirl about just outside of the event horizon, emitting energy as it accelerates on descent. Again, I think this will look the same for all directions.
Can anyone help with this?
Is it me or is the black hole smiling at us?
5
Goes right along with Pluto's gigantic heart!
1
It must simply be pure matter absent energy. A collapse of atoms to pure mass.
I'll ask Einstein.
1
One lazy, rainy morning when I'm 70, I'll watch a time-lapse of 35 years worth of collected data from this black hole, as I listen to William Basinski's Disintegration Loops, a cup of tea in hand, and gently smile.
1
Why should anyone describe as malevolent a “something-ness” returning to its “nothing-ness”? Unless we are perhaps expressing our own fear of certain death and obliteration; a fear of our much more certain non-existence, or as Paul Tillich described it, non-being.
Nonetheless, congratulations to all for the superb international achievement.
6
E=MCsquared
E divided by C squared = M x C squared divided by C squared.
E=M
Why do you seek a reality according to the limits of the human senses and brain? Infinity is the best example to know our limits about a limitless reality we cannot comprehend. Maybe someday, God will tell us what we cannot comprehend? Hmm?
It must simply be pure mass absent energy. I'm limited just like you but thanks for the picture. It must have been a terrific effort.
« The image, of a lopsided ring of light surrounding a dark circle deep in the heart of the galaxy known as Messier 87, resembled the Eye of Sauron, a reminder yet again of the desperate and feeble attempts of newspapers of record to try to lure millennials with pop culture references »
2
Perhaps it's a pure magnetic field , the universe in Flux. Gravity.
I write/sing songs about black holes: Hit A Hole Black You Don't Come Back...and more songs
Black Holes Eat Matter
Bye Bye Black Hole
Does Everyone Really Have A Black Hole Inside Them?
Schwarzschild World
And today...somewhere....Einstein smiles knowingly.
Gorgeous!
2
Maybe somewhere he smiled yesterday or tomorrow.
Maybe he had already experienced our today, with the vestiges of the experience coming to his self a a hundred or so years ago....
Time/space relative, no?
2
Are black holes stationary is it possible that one day they will gobble up universes around them?
@Mir
They already have.
Further, the gravity wave detectors show that they occasional merge into one another.
All of this predicted by a marginally employable patent clerk who figured much of it in his 'free time'.
Amazing.
2
It would be a nice gesture to name the M87 object "Hawking".
2
Or after his mother, who created him and his brain.
1
It's certain a black hole is pure mass and condensed flux absent energy. It's the near pure form of gravity of which we can only imagine by the limits of our senses and brain. Only an Angel of God could comprehend it. It's a pure flux. The absence of light or energy at it's core and the polar action of the last vestiges of energy and matter at it's periphery support this. Can you perceive flux without observing it's effects?
Sadly, Stephen Hawking, who described the phenomenon of an event horizon that could be visible (named for him: Hawking Radiation), did not live to see this amazing accomplishment.
3
@MikeG
That aura is not Hawking Radiation.
3
This discovery, coupled with the epic brilliance of Einstein, gives me goose bumps. It's beyond fascinating and exciting. Congratulations to all who have been and continue to be a part of this tremendous project. A truly awe-inspiring discovery, indeed!
9
Fantastic. Hopefully people everywhere today will feel humbled by the wonders of the universe and put their earthly dramas aside for a moment.
PS. What does "a telescope the size of the earth" even mean? In an article that is exacting, it's confusing.
2
@Brian Biggs
It is actually a collection of telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.
https://eventhorizontelescope.org/
2
@abj slant Yeah, I got that but it implies the telescopes benefit from being geographically distributed which isn't clear. The size of the earth doesn't seem to be a factor.
To my understanding, they just needed multiple telescopes to record data in a coordinated way for later post-processing.
@Brian Biggs
I don't think I can link to youtube here, but if you go to youtube and search for 'how event horizon telescope works' there is an animated video that explains how the synchronized data is combined to form the picture.
Technically, we're seeing the light from effects surrounding the black hole, and a spot we can't really see because light can't reach us from within the event horizon (except for some quantum effects that probably don't show up in the image, though I could be wrong about that).
Know one really knows what happens inside the event horizon of a black hole, and you can't really see it without being in it (and surviving, and being able to "see" in whatever conditions exist).
2
In some distant future, will the black holes that are at the center of most of if not all of our galaxies inexorably consume all of the collective matter of the cosmos? Will all of matter and energy ultimately cease to have ever existed? Will that be the precursor of the next big bang?
We will always have questions and we will continue to seek the answers even as the questions answered yield more questions.
We are truly Alice in Wonderland.
3
Why does it matter what is happening billions and billions of miles away?
These scientists should be using their gifts - and grant money - for something meaningful.
2
Yeah, like what does any of this have to do with Trump?
2
@Mark Marks
Right on.
The city is full of mice and rats.
Put the scientists to work on building a better rat trap.
Sheeesh
1
@Mark Mark
There's always spillover benefits from doing this kind of basic science, Mark. Kind of like getting Tang from the Moon Program! In this case the use of advanced algorithms and super computers to crunch the massive data the telescopes collected could eventually be used to help gene research which could lead to new therapies for cancer, Parkinson's, MS, AIDS etc.
5
I would say it’s not precisely correct that it’s a picture of a black hole. It’s a picture of a silhouette of a black hole— as I understand it, as no light can can escape a black hole, the visible light here is the light around the black hole. If anyone has thoughts, I am curious.
5
@Darren I think you're precisely right, and your careful statement is worth making. I'm surprised the astronomers aren't making their statement more accurately.
3
@vermontague
Well, it IS a direct picture of a black hole. A picture is always the capturing of reflected/generated light. In the absence of any such light, it is equally a picture.
"I would say it’s not precisely correct that it’s a picture of a black hole. It’s a picture of a silhouette of a black hole ..."
You have a point, but in context, "black hole" can be interpreted as "black hole and environs".
Specifically, Shep Doeleman (EHT Director) says: "We report the first image of a black hole."*
After that, Doeleman uses the word "shadow" several times, with the first use in quotes:
* 'By the 2000s, it was possible to sketch the "shadow" formed in the image ...'
* "... the more ambitious campaign of imaging the shadow itself."
* "Our image of the shadow confines the mass of M87 to within its photon orbit, ..."
And the title of the linked paper also uses the word "shadow":
"First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole"
* "Focus on the First Event Horizon Telescope Results". (follow the link in the article)
1
Awesome. Thank you Professor Einstein. Now I know what a curved light looks like.
3
I take issue with the ‘universe is indifferent’ theme echoed in the comments. Per the second law of thermodynamics, the universe is tending toward a higher state of entropy, and thus diametrically opposed to the creation of order (e.g. your refrigerator creates order (a local decrease in entropy) but increases in a greater degree the universe’s entropy (note the heat emerging from rear vents). So from its inception, the universe has set out to dissipate its energy. The physical laws themselves are as technically indifferent as parking enforcement laws, yet they ultimately connote a purpose (city ordained traffic congestion management). And thus, its laws operate ‘indifferently’ but not to intelligent life - rather, they are opposed to it. The creation of life requires order, and order requires energy to sift through the Big Bang’s fallout (still ongoing). And the price is high; entropy will always win, until all energy has dissipated out into the universal expanse, inaccessible/useless to physical processes/intelligent life: the heat death of the universe. If you subscribe to the ‘we live in a simulation’ musings, you can assign accountability to a creator. Alas, lacking definitive proof of a grand puppet master, we use ‘the universe’ as proxy. And thus we can assign it malevolent intent in its antithetic stance against order (and in extension life), its negation of any long-withstanding creation. Seemingly by design, for this universe, winter is coming; it always will.
7
Epic achievement. On the order of Galileo's observations. If only Einstein, and Hawking, were on hand; hopefully they get the word somehow.
8
@Charley Hale
Aww... Charley, that is soo sweet!
If only the telescope array could get a photograph of climate change.
3
far out....
2
If this is spherical, should we not see the glow all round?
1
@Rajesh
By definition a hole is not spherical. And this one is pointed almost right at us.
The ring [or, more accurately, the torus/doughnut (aka, physicists' so-called accretion disk)] of ionized gas rotating around the black hole. is definitely not spherical.
It is flattened by its own rotation. (Think pizza: pizza makers throw up their dough ball into the air with spin, thereby causing it to flatten.)
The gas in the inner part of the ring/torus is about to fall into the event horizon (the dark area just inside the ring) and disappear from our view. This increases the mass of the black hole and decreases the size of the event horizon.
The event horizon may be spherical. But it may not be, if the black hole has electric charge or spin (physicists; angular momentum). The latter is likely; the former is not.
Huh?
Pizza is tossed into air, with all its components and all of earth's forces acting on the dough. Are you saying that interstellar space has the same characteristics as earth-bound air?
Wouldn't the singularity be spherical?
1
It’s almost too big for my brain.
I feel like a fish in a fish tank being thrown into the ocean.
8
This is such a good way to explain it.
1
Congratulations, earth !!
5
Whoa baby.
1
Outer space seems to work like a machine so maybe global warming is somehow connected to that gravitational pull. I just did a web search of these words, do nations still dump nuclear waste into outer space, and apparently there is a global crisis regarding nuclear waste dumping. I'd say nuclear waste dumping is causing global warming more than cars etc. If we dump nuclear waste in outer space maybe that affects gravitational pull and the computer workings of outer space. Maybe our planet can use the supermassive black holes to suck in all our planets rubbish if they got the co-ordinates correct. Just a thought.
1
More proof that a blackboard and chalk still have a place in human advancement. E=mc2. Bravo Albert Einstein !! Did he clap his own erasers?
Nature only has a few design templates - dinosaurs and humans have 2 eyes, ears, and 4 limbs.
The Black Hole looks like a human trachea with cricoid ring posteriorly, lit up by positron emission tomography (PET scan), as cricoid arthritis.
1
Yes, and the big bang description sounds a whole lot like a vestigial memory of being born. Seriously.
Or at least a lot like Biblical Genesis. Chicken or egg on that one?
1
That is a black hole all right. Can't miss it. Now we need a picture of the biggest ball of yarn in the universe.
1
Our day-to-day existence on this planet, with miserable and petty squabbles, violent and abhorrent cruelties, and the possibility of humanity ending life on earth through climate change is reason for despair. Still, it is reassuring to see the bigger picture of the cosmos. Looking at the Milky Way image in this article it is inconceivable that earth is the one place so-called intelligent life exists. It also seems likely that, somewhere out there, intelligent life has found ways to coexist with intelligent life. Of course, it would be wise for all of them to avoid falling into a black hole.
3
Fascinating that Einstein's 1915 theory has been proven correct, in this modern age. I'm over 60 and didn't do science at school and only did home economics. Maybe they can use this supermassive black hole as a vacuum cleaner for all our planets rubbish and waste, if they get the co-ordinates correct. USA needs to get a patent in place, and could charge other nations for disposing of their rubbish and waste. Instead of exporting our rubbish to China we could export it to the USA and Nasa could dispose of it into a super massive black hole.
1
I have a hard enough time fathoming the size of our sun relative to the earth. That these black holes can be somehow simultaneously a) millions or billions of times the size of our sun and b) comprised of nothingness in the most terrifying sense of the word both scares and delights me to my core.
6
Pretty sure this is not the first picture of a black hole. Saw it in all of the Lord Of The Rings movies actually.
2
It's a pity that Dr. Stephen Hawking did not live to see this day. He was so close, but he just needed a little more time dilation.
4
Amazing!
Another excellent discussion of today's revelation and the nature of black holes soon may be heard on the "Forum" podcast from America's KQED radio.
https://www.kqed.org/forum
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432307980/forum
3
The image of a black hole in Messier 87 is a wonderful insight into one of the major energy works of natural processes. It is certainly not anything "malevolent", A term which defines intentional ill-will to others. We would do well to avoid overlaying scientific fact with our own fears and obsessions which only serve to confuse and pervert reality.
5
Build a wall... of telescopes to see beyond our smallness.
5
Actually it is the first image of the event horizon of a black hole.
Pictures of black holes were already taken many years ago.
1
Are we sure that isn't a firefly on the telescope lens?
1
I enjoyed your prose as much as I did the amazing news. Thank you
1
Whoof. If Einstein can theorize a black hole's existence in 1915 and be proven right over a century later, then what does that say about climate change predictions a century from now?
Einstein was a very original, one-person outlier in his time. 97% of today's scientists agree climate change is happening. So . . . this 10-year window to change our methods is no joke.
It's amazing how magnificent and powerful scientific exploration is - until the business establishment doesn't like what it says.
6
Wow. “What a time be be alive” indeed. (sheds a spontaneous tear of awe)
3
Amazing. Simply amazing.
1
What is unfathomable to me is the power of Einstein's mind. That he could think of ideas, mathematically formulate them and then describe the answer in human terms is truly incredible. Gives me shivers.
8
Kudos, Mr. Overbye, for capturing the cosmos in a way this English major could grasp. Beautiful writing.
Hey, Michael Barbaro: Can you book Dennis tomorrow for The Daily? Would love to hear you two get cosmic...
5
Those who claim a black hole is not "malevolent' obviously have had no close up experience with black holes.
@Murray Kenny
And you have had such an experience? More than once? Who knew??
1
It looks like HAL 9000. Kubrick was good. Einstein and the EH crew, better.
"Oh, glory of glories. Oh, heavenly testament to the eternal majesty of God's Creation."
...
"Holy macaroni!"
- Homer Simpson
2
Life is not known to contain the quality of justice or fairness, but it would have been heart-warming, at least, if Stephen Hawking had had an opportunity to view the black hole image
1
Fascinating. Beautiful. Terrifying. And for those of us in our mid 40s- is it possible there’s a tiny ship on the edge there with Maximillian Schell and a robot voiced by Roddy McDowell ?
2
At long last, something interesting and instructive to read about. Every assertion well supported by data. No ETs, crop circles, chem trails. Meanwhile the AG is launching an investigation of a conspiracy theory, again. When will astrophysicists and cosmologists rise up and take government away from the clueless infants we seem to need?
3
When I consider the relationship between this unfathomably black hole, and the hair on the back of my neck standing on end 55 million light years distant, I am once again thrilled by 1) the interconnectedness of all things, and 2) the power of the human mind to mediate that vastness.
8
Beautifully said.
4
This is exhilarating - first for the sheer sight of something which keeps (still) so much beyond the reach of our cognizance , with characteristics having a scale which on itself can give goosebumps (6.5 billion solar masses, anyone !!), and then for the revelation that it pretty much dovetails with what Einstein's equations had predicted , however squeamish he was about that particular possibility at the time. At moments like these, I feel, after all we may not be just mere mortals !
3
Nothing is spared by the Black Hole. It seems to make suns, planets, galaxies, universe, light, time, electrons, protons, neutrons by it's infinite gravitational pull into it's it's fathomless hole.
Now I'm wondering about sink-holes in our own back-yard - Earth. Is it too much mass on the surface sinking due to Earth's gravitational pull into itself?
1
"Is it too much mass on the surface sinking due to Earth's gravitational pull into itself?"
I'm not sure what you are asking, but a sink hole forms when the matter underneath the surface is removed. That eliminates the force that counteracts the force of gravity on the surface.
That is analogous to what happens when a star collapses into a black hole -- except that the force counteracting gravity is radiation pressure from thermonuclear fusion. A star collapses when thermonuclear fusion stops, so gravity wins. Google "gravitational collapse".
2
@WLP
I guess you did'nt get my humor. Don't take me literally!
For those who are nonplussed by the scientific excitement surrounding this feat, consider the ingenuity required to accomplish such exquisite measurements. Consider the physical extremes of distance, energy, and gravity involved. Consider the importance of validating Einstein's general theory of relativity in one of it's most bizarre predictions. Consider also the hope this engenders for our humble species to join together, to know the universe.
8
Fantastic image but I am puzzled about one thing. The black hole lives in three spatial dimensions and so one would expect matter to be falling in from all three directions, including in front of the black hole. So, wouldnt we see light originating between the black hole and our telescope, lighting up the shadow?
@pete
The ring is called an accretion disk and forms along what would be the equator of the spinning black hole. While an impact of some large stellar body into the event horizon from an odd angle would likely cover the whole thing with a glow for a time, this matter will eventually fall into the same equatorial plane. We are looking at this picture from either the top or the bottom..and a bit skewed, which is why we see the disk as well as one side of it being brighter than the other.
3
@Nicole
Thanks, that’s sounds very plausible. I guess we got lucky in our position relative to the spin.
A marvelously well written article. Thank you.
2
Would additional millimeter-wave telescopes in space, maybe in geosynchronous orbit or on the moon, help increase the resolution by providing a bigger effective aperture?
2
Woke up the young kids for this one.
I tried to counter boredom and disinterest by letting them know that before a few months ago, no human being, ever, had seen such a thing, and that they were therefore among the very first to do so. They are now the first generation in all of human (or all life on earth?) history to grown up with this knowledge and visual experience.
I did, however, also have to reassure that no need to be fearful, as the "eating" and "capturing" the blackhole was doing happened (still happening?) a long, long, long, long, long way away from us here on our tiny, precious Earth. (Science writers might consider this fear reaction when crafting children's books on the subject.)
7
@Mama Maybe if there were a video game.
At first it looked like a glazed doughnut but the article revealed the hard work of many in this accomplishment. Congratulations to all who made the image possible!
5
Oh boy oh boy oh boy! What a great moment for humanity! I am thrilled to have seen this in my lifetime.
I’m a Boomer and old enough to remember science teachers and my physics professor saying that black holes were fascinating but only mathematically proveable and quite possibly an error in Einstein’s work.
O brave new world, that has such event horizons in it!
15
@Bohemian Sarah
A fellow Boomer here. I remember my grade school teachers would bring little black & white portable televisions (with rabbit ears!) to school for every Mercury launch. SO exciting! I was glued to the NYT on my laptop this morning for this announcement. I was not disappointed.
5
Just curious, is this "picture" based only on the visible spectrum? How would the high frequency or low frequency signals tell us about what is actually going on?
3
'Just curious, is this "picture" based only on the visible spectrum?'
The radio telescopes observed electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 1.3 mm, which is not visible to the human eye.*
I'm guessing the image is actually an intensity map.
* "eventhorizontelescope dot org" web site.
1
Wow this is just amazing! Unbelievable what the human race has archived and will archive in the future!
2
Human ingenuity and thinking at its finest. BTW humanity is "God's computer."
4
No, the UNIVERSE is God’s computer.
Quite literally, actually.
The universe is a quantum computer that is performing its computations at maximum possible speed.
Humanity is just one small part of that program, but a mirror of all the good and the bad the algorithm allows.
4
Why must everything be described or understood as a computer, or any machine?
2
@Kara Ben Nemsi There is no God . Where did the dinosaurs worship?
So revealing!
Wish there was some smart way to study "black holes" on planet earth; they collide with "our universe" everyday. It can be revealing!
Truly astounding.
3
To be observed while listening to Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”. https://www.google.com/search?q=soundgarden black hole sun
3
Sorry, it looks more like an image from a nuclear cardiac study.
1
No doubt Trump is working on denying future funding for stuff like this.
8
Thank goodness there still are sufficient private resources to support scientific research. The republic party has an entirely different approach and goal: "Science? We don't need no stinkin' science. All we need to know is in the Bible. Like - all creation (which is no more than 10,000 years old) happened in 6 calendar days. The earth was created before the sun. The moon gives off its own light. The universe is static, not expanding. The Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood. Man and dinosaurs coexisted." Etc. etc.
4
@Muleman
You forgot the most important thing the Bible says (actually, it doesn't but don't tell them that. It's not like they're ever going to read it): The love of money is the greatest good.
1
This isn't a "photograph" or even an image comprised of data from visible light - it's a human interpretation/depiction of radio waves observed in a complicated way over a long period of time. It's possible to call this data representation what it is without discounting the huge achievement by the researchers.
And this sequence... "resembled the Eye of Sauron, a reminder yet again of the power and malevolence of nature. It is a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity." Absurd.
Was really expecting better from NYT here.
6
Black hole sun
Won't you come
And wash away the rain
Black hole sun
Won't you come
Won't you come
9
World waits with the bated breath for the launch and commissioning of James Webb observatory, a successor to highly successful Hubble, for many more discoveries in astronomy, like the imaging of black hole.
A NASA release rightly says “The answers to some of the universe's greatest cosmic mysteries are written across the night sky, inscribed in light we can't see with our human eyes - but it won't be invisible to us forever. "Infrared: Beyond the Visible" explores the wonder of infrared astronomy and the promise of the upcoming Webb Space Telescope. Get a sense of the sights Webb will capture, with its Hubble-sharp vision and ability to reach into the farthest depths of space and time.Infant galaxies! Just-forming planets! Cosmic Space Storks!”
7
Ha! How far we've come in tech and science, yet, conservative deny climate change and vaccines.
3
Most scientists will know this is not an image of a black hole. The headline is misleading. It is physically (no pun intended) impossible to photograph a black hole.
This image shows a representative (calculated) image of the event horizon, which surrounds every black hole. The image's center is dark, because today we cannot even understand let alone "see" what lies there.
5
@IN
An endless library created by 5th Dimensional humans where Matthew McCaughey can send a message to his daughter from the past.
Haven't you seen Christopher Nolan's Interstellar?
2
Now all we have to figure out is how to get all our garbage here down on earth up and into it. I assume that’s why we went to all the trouble to find it? Nothing we seem to do is not done without the purpose of potential exploitation. Such an endearing quality of ours.
4
I infer that the image is presented not as seen by the telescope, but as it might be seen looking along the axis of the black hole's jet (aside from intensity variations due to matter intervening along the line of sight)? Otherwise the infalling disc of bright matter should appear elliptical. Am I correct that the image is not only false-color but also false-viewpoint?
What can you say? Just way cool.
2
If you want to understand the real science of the image (it's not a shadow... it's a silhouette! a huge difference), google profmattstrassler and read the April 9th (not the 10th) post.
Fluff like Overbye writes is great to connect to the humans doing the science and the hoops they jump through to get results. And it's an important behind-the-scenes story.
But science is about explaining and understanding what you see....something totally different.
5
The question about how a 3 dimensional phenomenon got photographed as a 2 dimensional slice facing earth is an interesting question that needs to be answered.
Two Dimensionally it may appear that the lower circular outer section/ring around the black hole is brighter (and hotter) than the upper section.
Three Dimensionally it is more likely that there is a uniform circular outer section/ring of brightness (and heat) which we are viewing from an angle, with the upper portion appearing to be darker because it is further away from our point of observation.
More evidence, I propose, that the "red shift" in observable light does not prove that there is an "ever expanding universe". It is more likely proof that light sources further away from our point of observation shift towards the red end of the spectrum for a different reason. That apparent red shift, in my view, is more likely due to the slowing of light speed caused by its travel through a greater amount of dark matter before it reaches our Earth-centered point of view...
@Ravi Shenoy
The glowing ring is actually an accretion disk, much like the rings around Saturn. Debris from objects that are destroyed by the black hole gravitate and rotate in this location rather than all around the black hole. We happen to be looking at just the right angle to both see the whole thing, and if you look at the top left and bottom right you'll also see the blur of jets of radiation and light that the black hole 'burps' after each meal. Do a search on Messier 87 and you'll see pictures of just how far these jets extend.....over 5000 light years.
1
As the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Project Manager for the Event Horizon Telescope project, I just wanted to share the elation, joy, relief and pride that we as scientists feel that our M87 black hole results have inspired wonder and excitement in fellow-scientists and the general public at large.
This is a real first for humanity, and this scientific advance is all the more exciting in that we release our results on the centenary anniversary of the first observations that corroborated Einstein's theory of General Relativity predictions.
This scientific milestone has been achieved after a decade or so of incredibly dedicated work by hundreds of people, many of whom are early-career scientists and junior academics. It is through their hard work that this ground-breaking discovery should be celebrated.
David James
[email protected]
Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory Project Manager
Event Horizon Telescope.
668
@David James
Congratulations!
25
@David James
Fantastic work--thank you and all of your colleagues for advancing our knowledge of the universe!
26
@David James What a credit your entire team is to the wonders of human intelligence, hard work and collegiality. Congratulations to everyone for this amazing discovery. As a layperson, I would like to thank all of you for your dedication, cooperation and inspiring teamwork!
I join the millions of people around the world who cannot wait to learn more from you about the cosmos we share. Thank you, sir.
33
Technically it is not a photograph of a black hole since all electromagnetic energy, including the visible spectrum we call light, is absorbed within it so the human eye cannot actually see it. It's more like capturing a photograph of it's presence by observing the contrast of surrounding objects that are emitting electromagnetic radiation.
A subtle distinction that does not diminish the proof of Einstein's theory!
5
"It's more like capturing a photograph of it's presence by observing the contrast of surrounding objects that are emitting electromagnetic radiation."
OK, call it the silhouette of a black hole -- or Einstein's shadow.* :-)
"... so the human eye cannot actually see it."
The radio telescopes observed electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 1.3 mm, which is not visible to the human eye.
* See this book: "Einstein's shadow : a black hole, a band of astronomers, and the quest to see the unseeable" by Seth Fletcher.
1
@WLP
"The radio telescopes observed electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 1.3 mm, which is not visible to the human eye."
The radiation detected was not emanating from the black hole which was my point. In addition to the human eye not being able to see a black hole neither can our current radio telescopes or other instrumentation directly detect a black hole.
It's theorized that black holes emit a form of radiation commonly referred to as Hawking's radiation or black body radiation but it's a yet to be proven theory and we certainly do not currently have instruments that can detect it.
We are not looking at an image of a black hole. We are looking at data that has been color-coded. That data was generated by computations made on some other data from observations. Can someone please explain what was observed??
4
@Bruce
You're right - it's a false-color image of data obtained from radio telescopes around the world. Electromagnetic (radio) waves can't be seen by the human eye, so they create an image from the radio receivers. I assume the brighter (whiter) colors of red mean higher intensity radio waves.
The black thing at the center is the event horizon of the black hole - the region where light itself can't escape. It's about 2,000 miles in diameter, and contains the mass of billions of stars like our sun. The matter inside is denser than a neutron star.
Some imagination is required, because the black hole is actually sitting in the middle of a huge gravitational lens. That is to say, the radio waves are probably being bent by the intense gravity that surrounds the thing. Imagine a camera lens or the lens on a pair of binoculars, where the light is emitting from the center of the lens (instead of traveling through it). I suspect that means that the image is some distorted view of the black hole.
2
"Can someone please explain what was observed??"
Photons with a wavelength of 1.3 mm were observed by an array of radio telescopes equipped with suitable radio receivers, analog to digital converters, and digital data recorders.
See the "Technology" tab at the "eventhorizontelescope dot org" web site.
See, also, this book: "Einstein's shadow : a black hole, a band of astronomers, and the quest to see the unseeable" by Seth Fletcher.
1
"We are looking at data that has been color-coded."
Actually, the image is monochrome.
The papers aren't online and I couldn't find any technical details about the image, but I am guessing that the image is an intensity map at a wavelength of 1.3 mm.
1
I find this news thrilling and humbling. Like many young science-oriented kids, I found the idea of black holes fascinating and mystical. I wrote my first real "term paper" on the topic when the degree of evidentiary support for proof was, at the layman's level, explained as that warbling dopplerian dance of a star with its presumed black hole, partnered unseen. This was my first real experience of an elegant rigor that science can bring to bear on phenomena and a special joy for a curious kid, remembered and renewed with today's landmark story.
7
Really beautiful comment.
2
This is a fantastic effort. If only human beings could garner the potent focus power that is innate within each person to peer into the beauty that exists in the human heart. This vital effort could radically change the social web of the planet and even galvanize technology to confront climate change based on the recognition that we are inexorably inclusive in the web of life, that the beauty within the heart resides in all things.
It is also interesting to consider that the black hole image is revealed in sync with the ever improving resolution of the black hole that is Trump. Let's hope that the images of this earthly reality also become clearer to the public over the next two years.
3
Bravo! Never imagined we'd ever get to actually see what presumably cannot be seen! If only Einstein could have lived long enough ... Witnessing mysteries and marvels of space, however afar, are perhaps my one reason to want to live a really long life.
It is also a tribute, in these tribal, nationalistic times, to the power of international collaboration, and pooling our resources together. True science is beyond politics and man-made frontiers.
5
Well the best and brightest people - Greece and Egypt - thought the sun came up every day and was on a cart.
IMHO this represents how far and how powerful the human mind is and with new tools these discoveries can quickly be seen by all on this planet.
3
Article is great but I'm having one issue.
"The image, of a lopsided ring of light surrounding a dark circle deep in the heart of the galaxy known as Messier 87, some 55 million light-years away from Earth, resembled the Eye of Sauron, a reminder yet again of the power and malevolence of nature."
Characterizing nature as malevolent is ridiculous. Nature is amoral and this hyperbole detracts from this truly brilliant achievement.
22
Incredible, but I have one question, if someone could help me:
If the black hole itself and the event horizon surrounding it are both spheres, I would think the glowing matter around it would fully encapsulate the black hole. If this is the case, why/how do we see a dark center or shadow? Shouldn't this be covered up by the glowing matter sitting in front of it?
7
@Anant Vashi The glowing matter around the black hole, known as the accretion disk, is not spherical. It's flat.
That happens for the same reason that the galaxy is flat or the solar system is flat. The reason for that is a little technical, but it's essentially because as the matter collapses towards the center of gravity, the whole system starts spinning faster and faster. Think of it like an ice skater pulling her legs in as she spins. As the system starts spinning faster and faster, the matter continues to collapse in the direction perpendicular to the spin, but the spin keeps the matter in orbit and not collapsing in the other direction.
7
Really helpful explanation. Thanks!
1
@Matthew this is really helpful, thank you. A follow up:
If the accretion disk is flat, that implies that the image is taken perpendicular to the rotational axis. Was this a fluke or was the data manipulated somehow to get only this perspective? Shouldn't we only have one line of sight to M87, so how did they make sure to get this top (or bottom) side view? Thanks in advance.
2
"A black hole several billion times more massive than the sun". That takes a few minutes to actually sink in. It really shows how insignificant our planet really is in the overall scheme of things, yet we are bogged down with hearing about Trump 24/7.
10
Terrific picture of confirmation of the existence of black holes in the Universe. It's ironic that astronomers and astrophysicists, scientists all of them makes me believe in God. When I hear, " God has a plan ", I'll believe it now. I'll believe dust to dust actually means dust, light, time, protons, neutrons, electrons disappear into nothingness. Who says Science can make you non-believers? It's greatness confirms that God is Great because who can plan infinitely for universe after universe!
5
Matter captured by a black hole is not gone forever. According to Hawking radiation, black holes eventually evaporate.
3
@Matt...or it is emitted from a corresponding white hole that is the source of a "Big Bang" in another universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hole
@Matt
Gamma rays do escape.
From Wikipedia: A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing—not even particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from inside it. The boundary of the region from which no escape is possible is called the event horizon. Although the event horizon has an enormous effect on the fate and circumstances of an object crossing it, no locally detectable features appear to be observed.
Objects whose gravitational fields are too strong for light to escape were first considered in the 18th century by John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace. The first modern solution of general relativity that would characterize a black hole was found by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916, although its interpretation as a region of space from which nothing can escape was first published by David Finkelstein in 1958.
On 11 February 2016, the LIGO collaboration announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves, which also represented the first observation of a black hole merger. As of December 2018, eleven gravitational wave events have been observed that originated from ten merging black holes (along with one binary neutron star merger). On 10 April 2019, an image of a black hole in Messier 87 was published via the Event Horizon Telescope.
3
What I have never heard explained is what is behind a black hole. Is it two dimensional or are they spheres, or is there even a theory?
6
@Paulie The black hole is a sphere in space, not a circle. What's on the other side is just more ordinary space.
10
"... what is behind a black hole."
Are you asking what is "inside" a black hole?
"Is it two dimensional or are they spheres, or is there even a theory?"
It sounds like you are asking whether a black hole is a spherical shell or a solid sphere.
The not-too-informative answer: The event horizon is a hypothetical spherical shell, but it is not rigid. Light and matter can fall through it, but once they do they cannot get back out.
2
@Dennis Overbye
So would the image shown of the "Black Hole" be the same when viewed from the same distance we are from the event, but say, from another planet, 90-180 degrees away from our linear position?
1
We have known about Black Holes for a long time, what is relatively new is the discovery of the collision of these behemoths resulting in the formation of new Black Holes, properties of which are as yet undetermined.
What if the resultant Black Hole possess the sum of the gravitational fields of the individual Black Holes making it immensely more attractive and capable of reeling in yet other Black Holes.
And if we extrapolate this, will the universe then, in the fullness of time, not end up as one rather enormous Black Hole?
2
@Sohrab Batmanglidj
Nope, firstly gamma rays escape black holes like rats escaping a sinking ship.
Also there’s talk of white holes as the anti black holes.
The confirmation of black holes is both amazing and terrifying! Good work to everyone that was a part of this!
3
Great news proclaiming loud and clear the superb achievement, an exhibition of American ingenuity and technological prowess.
Repeated achievements, be it Webb Telescope when operational will be the world's premier space science observatory, will solve mysteries of our solar system. or LIGO as a unique "observatory" tailored to gravitational wave detection or Mars rover achievement, all made possible because of enlightened immigrant policies which enabled best and brightest from all over the world flock America.
But look at the dismal scene today. Under Trump America sadly, has become unwelcoming place. There is no room for immigrants in Trump's America.”Trump has relentlessly targeted immigrants’ rights, rescinding DACA; ending the humanitarian Temporary Protected Status, deporting long-time community members who are parents of U.S. citizens; taking aim at family reunification policies; turning his back on refugees; and making racist comments about immigrants’ countries of origin— in addition to instilling fear and uncertainty into immigrant communities across the country”.
A recent NYT report “the divergent personal trajectories of Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi, so too does the focus of their leadership, while Mr. Trump is obsessed with building walls, Mr. Xi is busy building bridges”.
If American hold a preeminent leadership today, it is largely due to the erstwhile catalysing foresighted political leadership which is pathetically lacking in present day Trump America!
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@N.G. Krishnan
I hate to defend Trump who is appalling in so many ways. Nevertheless, Trump and his base oppose primarily illegal immigration, oppose family reunion as a basis for US immigration, and advocate that future US immigration should be merit based.
Merit-based US immigration ought to increase, not decrease, opportunities for the best and brightest to emigrate to the US.
2
"It is a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity."
This is a science article, not an exercise in making fuzzy metaphors.
The article should explain *why* the image shows a "ring" and *why* there are bright patches in the "ring".
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Two Dimensionally it may appear that the lower circular outer section/ring around the black hole is brighter (and hotter) than the upper section.
Three Dimensionally it is more likely that there is a uniform circular outer section/ring of brightness (and heat) which we are viewing from an angle, with the upper portion appearing to be darker because it is further away from our point of observation.
More evidence, I propose, that the "red shift" in observable light does not prove that there is an "ever expanding universe". It is more likely proof that light sources further away from our point of observation shift towards the red end of the spectrum for a different reason. That apparent red shift, in my view, is more likely due to the slowing of light speed caused by its travel through a greater amount of dark matter before it reaches our Earth-centered point of view...
@T.L. Hall
I thought the red shift is gamma rays escaping the black hole
Focus! C'mon! Seriously, who took this picture?
... ok, I'm done. In all seriousness, it's really cool.
5
The image and the descriptions of these points in the universe (multiverse?) are unfathomable.
But as Stephen Hawking said, in a 2015 lecture, "Black holes are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly come out in another universe. If you feel you are trapped in a black hole, don't give up. There is a way out."
We can only hope that Professor Hawking's explanation (and inspiration) applies to the situation the United States and the global community currently faces.
6
This sentence intrigued me: "If too much matter is crammed into one place, the cumulative force of gravity becomes overwhelming, and the place becomes an eternal trap, a black hole."
Is this similar to our problem with garbage and plastic? To much of it in landfills and the ocean...eventually creating a black hole?
2
"To much of it in landfills and the ocean...eventually creating a black hole?"
In principle, there could be micro black holes, but there needs to be enough force to crush the matter into a black hole.
As far as anyone knows, the only way to crush matter into a black hole is to start with a huge mass -- several times the mass of the Sun. In that case, gravitational attraction provides the crushing force.
For more about various high-density objects, see:
"Black holes and time warps : Einstein's outrageous legacy" by Kip S. Thorne.
4
This accomplishment may even surpass our landing on the moon. What a grand day for Science and humanity.
1
Mr. Overbye writes with relish in this column; I confess I had to stop reading before the end because I found the metaphysical implications of this photo really unsettling. Fantastic article and image - thank you! I will read it again more fully.
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@Sushirrito Yes, human imagination jumps in along with the scientific explanation. Sort of like the age old question, if a tree falls and there are no creatures around to hear it does it make a sound? So, in a sense, nothing is of any importance or seen or heard unless humanity is there to observe and think or even act upon what we do observe. It seems to me if that is so ,humans may have a purpose after all. An eternal purpose?
"Here, according to Einstein’s theory, matter, space and time come to an end and vanish like a dream."
3
Possibly a glimpse of a Higher Education for all who desire it? Not just a black hole but a further understanding of the entire Universe or Universes.
1
Whoa. I I saw that same image when I was a devout Rosicrucian! Insert mind blown emoji here!
1
Most amazing. Our imagination is even bigger and stronger than the biggest black hole - nothing can escape once it enters our imagination!
2
I wish Stephen Hawking had lived to see this.
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What is a black hole to the needs of individuals, unless that’s the field in which they make a living?
It’s interesting. It may lead to important products and services in the future.
For me, give me three bullet points at the end of the month with an expandable summary, add a few AI bells and whistles in the future, and append it to the black hole archive for reference.
Beyond that, I think energy is better directed elsewhere.
More importantly, what was President Trump’s latest tweet, for example? Seriously, aren’t his tweets and, for that matter, the entire Twitterverse of bloviating responses, closer and more relevant?
Well, if that’s not your view, and if you would like to visualize where all that twits of Twitterdom go when they are released, consider the following scientific theories:
Below the level of the atom, we have quantum mechanics and all those subterranean fields of energy that drive them. We have matter and we also have anti-matter. If we are, as good people, in the business of channeling and amplifying good energy, where does the waste and negative energy go? That’s right boys and girls, into the black hole.
Now you know where all the noxious gases of Tweetersville go to reside. And the spiritual energies of those who cling to them? They spend an eternity in the echo chamber of the black hole. Now, aren’t black holes like ... awesome?
1
We've come a long way since Lippershey patented the first telescope in 1608.
At this rate, eventually we'll be able to colonise new planets in far off galaxies to replace the home we destroyed in the Milky Way with our population bomb, anthropogenic greenhouse gases, global warming and climate change,
1
This black looks like an atom. I find comfort in that, infinite loop. We are stardust, and rightly in awe.
2
“resembled the Eye of Sauron, a reminder yet again of the power and malevolence of nature. It is a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity.” What in the name of all that is holy is this? Why immediately cast this as evil nature? One could just as easily (and probably more accurately) claim this looks like the image of a dilating cervix. And, for what it’s worth, one way portals to eternity are generally what people seek for not equate with malevolent nature. NYT: your readers deserve better reflection on momentous scientific achievements than cheap metaphors and potshots.
5
Interesting but why not use vast astronomy budgets to search for cancer cures etc. Next thing they'll spend 100 Trillion looking for Heaven.
1
Same could be said for money going to a wall.
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@Larry
There are close to a hundred bio companies working on cancer. They don’t need money, they need time.
It's amazing that human beings can contemplate such things as black holes 55 million light years away and yet we struggle to coexist while so many reject science or are driven to hate by petty mythologies with no proven basis in fact.
7
Our universe could exist at the Planck quantum energy density in an infinite series of black holes. What does an event horizon look like from inside a black hole?
1
One of the Grails of theoretical mathematic objects finally meet an observational astronomy team that covers the globe and produce the expected outcome. This effort, spanning a century of work and collaboration by people around the world, is an example of what can be accomplished by people pursuing a common objective. Science at its best. There ain't no denying that.
5
Truly stupendous.
But if they can capture image of a black hole 55M light years aways, why can't they do one that is at the heart of our milky way galaxy less than 30,000 light years away?
1
@Waleed Khawaja My understanding is that they are, in fact, processing an image of our own black hole but met with delays.
Well, now we know. A black hole is just a giant...bagel!
2
“It is a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity.” It’s a black hole. It’s a portal to oblivion.
2
Just fascinating!
1
Space is still cool.
1
Looks like a black hole alright.
3
"...according to the math we know now the density approaches infinity and smoke pours from God’s computer."
What nonsensical drivel. Why does the writer mix in religion when trying to explain this phenomenal scientific accomplishment?
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If the black hole's gravitational pull absorbs everything, then nothing will be visible to see in the hole itself. Any matter in the hole that tries to reflect light back will have the light pulled in as well.
Therefore, we can only see what is around the hole being pulled in from the black hole's gravity. Correct?
"Therefore, we can only see what is around the hole being pulled in from the black hole's gravity. Correct?"
It's easier to think in terms of photons.
We can see photons that fly past the black hole in our direction and the photons that are emitted by heated matter in the accretion ring.
1
Really NYT..."smoke pours from God’s computer"
Can you just report the science in the science section and skip the references to the little man in the sky?
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What a fine piece of science writing! Especially: "Behemoths of nothingness." No comment on how this phrase might apply here on Earth ...
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The talk of “malevolence” and “smoke pouring from God’s computer” is, I think, out of place in this article. Together, those rhetorical flourishes evoke a religiously-tinged fear that black holes are evidence of a flaw in God’s plan. Did God screw up and doom us all to be sucked into an eternal black abyss? Are black holes literally the gates of Hell? I notice the author did not take the natural next step and pose these questions to the scientists.
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The statement below is an honest attempt at poetic expression by astrophysicist Avery Broderick. He sees aesthetics and science blending beautifully in the “Einstein description of gravity”.
AVERY BRODERICK: “Sometimes the math looks ugly!
But really there’s a strong aesthetic in theoretical physics generally! And the Einstein equations are beautiful!
And so often in my experience nature wants to be beautiful. And that’s one of the striking elements about the Einstein equations-about the Einstein description of gravity: It is fundamentally one of the most beautiful theories that we have.
But I can’t lie to you, the most exciting thing we could possibly do it would be to supplant Einstein. To find that in this extreme gravitational laboratory [of black hole M87] that there’s something a little new.
There are mysteries around black holes!"
Apr 10, 2019: Avery Broderick, Event Horizon team member, at news conference at the National Science Foundation.
4
Amazing achievement but I have a question.
We are seeing a 3 dimensional object projected onto a 2 dimensional canvas. Would not the event horizon which is also 3 dimensional be a larger sphere surrounding the smaller black sphere? If so, how is it that we can see the hole through the event horizon?
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"If so, how is it that we can see the hole through the event horizon?"
The article should explain the image better.
Imagine photons flying toward the black hole from all directions.
The photons on a radial trajectory toward us that are *behind* the black hole fall into it, so we don't see them.
Other photons graze the black hole tangentially and are deflected by it toward us, so we see them.
Some photons can actually orbit the black hole and then escape. If those photons escape toward us, we see them.
NB: That doesn't explain the bright patches in the ring.
2
@infrared--no, think saturns rings. That's how the gravity pulls everything in an orbit circling it.
@infrared Material falling together into a black hole, or in almost any other situation, has angular momentum and so winds up in a flattened pancake shape spinning around the central attraction. Also the black hole is probably spinning, pulling the disk around in the same direction. We are seeing the disk almost directly face on, so it looks like a doughnut hole. From the side it would look differently but the black hole magnifies and distorts the image of the accretion disk, light wraps around the hole on its way to our eyes.
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Many thanks to the Times for bringing this incredible accomplishment and accompanying images to the public.
55 million light years from earth... unimaginable except to a few but we're so fortunate to be given the chance to understand what this means. This is what 'awesome' really refers to.
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This shows the power of science compared to religion. Fifty years ago black holes were an unlikely-sounding hypothesis based on a thought experiment by physicists asking a what-if question about massive stars, applying the mathematics of physical laws and following the chain of causality.
That hypothesis generated a prediction, which astronomers used to gather data to see if the prediction was valid, and got a yes answer every time. That mass of evidence yielded a theory that has produced more predictions and withstood every evidentiary test. And now we have an actual image of and actual black hole.
That process and its results are majestic, and give me a feeling of wonder and goosebumps that religion never could. Religions are tiny, mean, and parochial—obviously the product of primitive human attempts to explain the world. Well, now we have actual explanations that are a million times more satisfying. Thanks to everyone who participates in that human activity, more holy than anything a priest or pastor or imam ever accomplished.
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@TimothyJ999 Thank you
2
One benefit of suffering through hurricane Irma here in Naples, Fl was 10 days of no electricity. The first night after Irma passed I looked into the sky and clearly saw the Milky Way for the first time in my 63 years. It was as if the stars were within my arm’s reach.
Now I have two new neighbors, one that needlessly has his house lit up like a gas station and the other that strung work lights outside his house so he can incessantly run gas powered tools in the middle of the night. I doubt either have looked into the sky with wonder.
When the sky was clear I have even seen my dogs look up at the sky, apparently they are more interested than my neighbors.
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When scientists (at IBM) photographed an atom, and then more atoms, configured to spell out "I" "B" "M", we learned that atoms are exactly as we imagined them to be.
When scientists first photographed a molecule, of many joined atoms, Carbon probably as I recall, we learned that our imagined picture of the matrix of atoms is exactly as we imagined them to be. (Like a honey comb)
When scientists first photographed the planet Pluto, many astronomers and lay people learned that indeed Pluto was in fact the planet they had always imagined, and not two icy masses joined together, residing off the ecliptic, rather than on it as our other planets.
Here, again, the photograph of the Black Hole is as many astronomers and scientists, mathematicians, and lay people, and science fiction writers imagined it.
And now, there is no more science fiction to the existence of such a hole in the universe.
3
For one of the most compelling developments in astrophysics in a generation, is it really necessary for Dennis Overbye to invoke "smoke pours from God’s computer"? While I don't begrudge Mr. Overbye's desire to attribute the galaxy and/or his life to a supreme being, nothing in science confirms that belief and I would encourage him to stick to the facts!
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@Bill I think you are perhaps reading too much into the reference. I took it as a metaphor and thought it was a nice touch.
1
Thank you Albert for showing humanity, once again, the stunning relevancy of mathematics.
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Congratulations to the astronomers and other scientists for this stunning achievement. It's amazing how something so deadly can look so beautiful.
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And yet there are still tens of millions of people in this world who prefer creation myths' millennia old absurdities to the profound marvels revealed to us everyday through inductive reasoning applied to scientific observation. Go figure!
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@Mather--my beliefs aside which I am withholding, theres nothing here that disproves the existence of a supreme being either. Maybe the big bang was God snapping his fingers. Just because we understand more and more of the science behind it, doesnt disprove theres something else beyond the science.
3
@bored critic,
Indeed we have heard from a number of scientists involved with the Hadron Collider and the study of the "God Particle" that the existence of an original creator is not so far fetched.
I see no problem with the two, God and Science, existing side by side. When you consider how limited our human brains may be in truly understanding both, it's hubris to think we can ever divorce one from the other.
1
"[...] the power and malevolence of nature."
If we're going to attribute intent to something that has none, I think apathy, not malevolence, would be more fitting.
17
I'm so impressed by the collaborative efforts to obtain this image. Congratulations to the team!
18
Two Dimensionally it may appear that the lower circular outer section/ring around the black hole is brighter (and hotter) than the upper section.
Three Dimensionally it is more likely that there is a uniform circular outer section/ring of brightness (and heat) which we are viewing from an angle, with the upper portion appearing to be darker because it is further away from our point of observation.
More evidence, I propose, that the "red shift" in observable light does not prove that there is an "ever expanding universe". It is more likely proof that light sources further away from our point of observation shift towards the red end of the spectrum for a different reason. That apparent red shift, in my view, is more likely due to the slowing of light speed caused by its travel through a greater amount of dark matter before it reaches our Earth-centered point of view...
2
@T.L. Hall: Perhaps, on some level, to exist at all, the universe must somehow conserve entropy in an eternal quantum-gravitational convection process.
@T.L. Hall Thanks for sharing. Your silly idea. Which would require that dark mater be distributed almost completely evenly throughout the universe. Which would make it impossible for it to hold galaxies together.
I'm being tough because "theories" like yours are often used to "show" that greenhouse gases are not a problem. There's this concept that everyone's ideas are equal. They ain't.
1
I see no suggestion here that dark matter is "distributed almost completely evenly throughout the universe" or any reason to believe that such a distribution would be relevant to light emanating towards us from such an isolated and essentially similar part of the universe.
Likewise I can see no relation to the distribution of dark matter and the very rational concerns about the seriousness of green house gasses.
My view may not be shared by the current majority, but that does not necessarily make it either "silly" or incorrect.
1
The picture suggests that the picture of the black hole could be referred to as being the "bagel in the sky." Congratulations to the scientists who were able to obtain this picture.
6
"... a reminder yet again of the power and malevolence of nature". How is this an example of malevolence, exactly?
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@Susan — Perhaps “potential malevolence” or “potential male violence” would have been more accurate, but journalists aren’t poets, are they.
Humbling.
If you can, catch the Stephen Hawking recording that played on BBC radio this a.m.
If you can’t....at the end he said (forgive my paraphrasing) that the Black Holes lead to infinity and perhaps to another universe. He said next time you are in a black hole think of what could be on the other side. Humbling again.
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Enhance. Enhance.
We need to build radiotelescopes on the Moon and at the libration points L4 and L5 to get higher resolution.
4
"...too much matter crammed into one space..." sounds like my house. Need to Marie Kondo the universe.
7
The black holes are mysterious to us since we are just gaining an understanding of them. But, they would appear to be numerous and necessary in the universe. If you consider the recent article in Scientific American on neutron stars, perhaps one might conclude this: black holes are microcosms of the Big Bang itself. The neutron stars precede total collapse to form a black hole, and this transition is not fully understood. It would seem that the neutron star may be densely packed neutrons. It may have a quark soup in the middle. And, one might conjecture that on total collapse there is a transition to pure energy encapsulated by highly curved space-time. So, perhaps only two things are left, pure energy (not photons) and gravity. Extrapolating, each Big Bang is a giant Black Hole. It is immense space-time curvature or gravity keeping all of the energy of the universe contained for an instant. But, it cannot “keep it together.” So, the Bang goes off. Some of the energy condenses into photons and some into gravitons (really pure conjecture). And, shortly after as it expands, more collapses occur with the formation of quarks…atoms…molecules. So, perhaps a testable quantum gravity theory would have to show this. Wish I knew more math.
2
Is this the actual analysis of the radio waves or an “enhancement “ for the non astronomy public?
2
Some questions on first seeing the photo in the article:
explanation for brightness asymmetry?
explanation for empty space outside the ring-ish light, such as other stars or other matter heading towards the black hole?
scale of the photo/how far across is the black hole?
2
Wow, something real!
4
An awe-inspiring event conveyed with really some superb writing.
4
that is amazing!
1
Distinct similarities between the Black Hole and the Eye or Mordor. We are looking into the future. Great achievement.
3
@Edgar--actually, we are looking into the past. 55 million years ago. Wonder what it looks like today.
1
We appear to live in a universe more beautiful and wondrous than any of us can possibly imagine!
8
Thank you for this article and amazing, amazing photo.
6
The magnitude of this story aside, This article is beautifully written.
"Nobody knows how such behemoths of nothingness could have been assembled. Dense wrinkles in the primordial energies of the Big Bang? Monster runaway stars that collapsed and swallowed up their surroundings in the dawning years of the universe?"
Nice work by Dennis Overbye
5
Malevolent - having, showing, or arising from intense often vicious ill will, spite, or hatred
1
The article doesn't use the terms "photon" or "orbit", yet those terms are essential to explaining what the image shows.
The article should explain where the photons in the image actually come from. In fact, there are photons approaching the black hole from sources throughout the galaxy, including the accretion disk that surrounds the black hole.
The light you are seeing is from photons that graze the black hole, so those photons don't actually fall into the black hole.
There are some complications, because photons can *orbit* the black hole if they are on the "photon sphere" (a term that should also be mentioned in the article). Those orbits are unstable, so some of the orbiting photons can *escape* from the black hole.
6
@WLP:
Thank you, that helps clarify what we're looking at.
Thank you to all the men and women who worked to bring this wonder to our eyes. Congratulations!
9
Essentially this is an "image" of one of the most brutal and unforgiving points, in a universe that is utterly brutal and unforgiving, and yet intuitively it gives me a very strong sense of peace and solace...
...I think this says far more about what it's like "down here" than it says about what it's like "out there"...I think...
1
I watched the event live.
I know this is all very scientific stuff.
Even though, I graduated from Caltech - fifty years ago - much of it was over my head.
In their much anticipated presentation, they could have used the NYT headline writer of stars askew.
But it reminded me of "what a wonderful world"
Don't know much about geography,
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra,
Don't know what a slide rule is for
But I do know that one and one is two,
And if this one could be with you,
What a wonderful world this would be
The black hole is that "one could be with you."
Well, the black hole also revealed to be more than one and one is two.
And with a black hole, it is indeed a wonderful world - a hot glazed Dunkin donut.
3
As an aside, I would recommend a quick google search of Disney's 2002 film Treasure Planet and its depiction of a black hole. This only in response to the article's reference to black holes representation in film; I find this example aligns with Dennis' disturbingly beautiful description of the image unveiled today in Washington DC.
An aside to the aside: huge fan of your work Dennis Overbye - you rock. This article is unreal.
6
Nature has no malevolence. That would imply intent
8
It’s good to see this, but don’t let your kids use this as an excuse to not finish their homework.
After all, Brooklyn is not expanding.
3
Thank you for capturing a visual image for those of us enthralled by the theory and the science supporting the existence of black holes.
1
The black event horizon at the center of the photograph seems to be about 2,000 miles in diameter. Some of the photographs on the net place a 'dogbone' measuring stick in the photograph, that shows the diameter of the black disk to be about: 50 uAS / 2 = 25 uAS. Thus, 25 uAS x 93,000,000 mi/AS x 1 AS/1,000,000 uAS = 2,325 mi.
1
Waaaaaaaaay cool!
This made my day. I have looked forward to this day since I first learnt of what a black hole was.
By the way, does anyone suddenly feel a craving for doughnuts? An occasion like this one deserves a celebratory doughnut. Are there any bakers out there to suggest a recipe for Commemorative Event Horizon Doughnuts?
7
The sheer creativity needed to come up with this method is stunning. This along with LIGO/gravity wave detection floor me - human ingenuity sometimes seems boundless.
5
I was really expecting that they would unveil an image of Sagittarius A as the first image of the black hole. Why did the consortium give the honor of the first imaged black hole to one that is at a distant galaxy 55 million light years away and not the one likely sitting at the center of our own galaxy 26k light years away? The scientists mentioned that they are also working on an image of Sag A but did not really specify if it was easier or more practical to image the distant black hole than our "local" behemoth and why..
3
@Abhishek
I was wondering the same thing. If they explained it, I missed it.
1
@Rick and since posting my original comment I've also looked in the 6 posted papers about a clue. However, SagA is scarcely mentioned in the papers. SagA appears exactly once in 3 out of the 5 posted papers. They do declare that imaging SagA is one of the goals other than Messier 87. however, there appears to be no indication if it was easier to image the distant black hole and why? Maybe the weather was good in that part of the sky simultaneously in all parts of the world when they acquired the images in april 2017? who knows? I am not a physicist but in my cursory reading of the publicly posted information this burning question appears not to have been adequately addressed by the consortium of scientists.
With all the tribalism, science-denying, and popular-nationalism portrayed in the media these days, I really needed this. What a stupendous confirmation of our knowledge of the universe...done through multi-national cooperation! We are always at the "beginning of eternity" with respect to our understanding. Thank you to the spirits of Francis, Rene, Barush, John, and so many other early Enlightenment philosophers, that live in today's researchers...It's the best time in all of history to be alive.
10
While the image of a black hole is indeed incredible, I couldn't help thinking of the many ignorant and suspicious people in this country and elsewhere who will claim that the picture of the black hole is a fake, and not a very good one at that. This is a problem that needs to be solved right here on earth.
3
Well written and engaging!
3
The Earth is 1 AU from the Sun, 93 million miles. Pluto is on average 40 AU from the Sun. The Voyager 1 space probe is the most distant human-made object from the Sun, at just over 145 AU.
This imaged black hole is 268 AU across. Just incredible.
4
The article describes a ring of ultra hot gasses form around the massive black hole revealing the black hole as "visible" in the middle of the ring. Why doesn't a "sphere" of ultra hot gasses form around the massive black hole? Wouldn't then these ultra hot gasses then be all that we could observe?
2
@Steven:
Great, great question!
Am I the only one whose itch to know what is going on on the other side has gotten even stronger? It's almost a literal one at this moment.
3
It looks like a close up of Chris Cornell’s head on the SuperUnknown Album.
1
Back only about 100 years or so, the milky way was considered to be the only galaxy....Hubble certainly squashed the premise as physics always bats last.
Black holes were postulated in the 1700s...would have been nice to see the pics for Michell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michell
1
This is as amazing to me as seeing the first man step out on the moon. Somehow our petty problems on earth seem so small. Thank you scientists for your amazing work and making science cool for young people.
7
A stunning and triumphant accomplishment of big science. Congratulations to all involved!
4
Expertly reported, wonderfully written. Thank you.
4
I really, really wish that this wonderful achievement and remarkable pictures had not been reported in anthropomorphic nonsense about, “malevolent,” Nature, “crouching,” black holes, and, “God’s computer.”
That’s a betrayal of what science is, and a projection of pettiness onto a magnificent universe.
Stop it; it’s childish.
7
An amazing scientific feat! The article offered an exciting and informative "read" until, that is, the beautiful and often poetic writing resulted in this linguistic oddity: "...the density approaches infinity and smoke pours from God’s computer." Huh?
4
@Robert Garrett, if you look back at historical NYT articles on major scientific or explorative discoveries, there are often colorful flourishes like this - I think they're just keeping with tradition. :) I liked it (am agnostic/atheist)
2
Congratulations to the curious, hardworking scientists and technologists who quietly persevered through these dark political times of ignorance and environmental and human abuse to search for truth and evidence to inch us closer to understanding the universe in which we live.
I agree nature is not malevolent, but humans (some) are malevolent, power-crazed, and/or willfully ignorant, and right now we are the planet's biggest threat and problem.
Plenty of cultures have myths and stories about what happens to egotistical, power-crazed humans who fail to read the signs of nature, fail to respect nurture, and suffer from dangerous hubris believing that they are superior creatures in the universe and need not learn about, respect, or heed nature's beauty, awesome power, or warnings.
Take climate change as an example...
And while I am at it--why are some of the most ignorant and disrespectful people of the environment and nature on the planet those who claim to be deeply religious and adore a god. If you are religious, is not nature, our beautiful gift of a planet, and the universe the work of that god?
5
"The bigger the antenna, the higher the resolution, or magnification, it can achieve."
That's gibberish. You can have low resolution at any "magnification". That's why digital zoom on a camera is useless -- it just makes the pixels bigger. In fact, with a higher resolution, more *details* can be seen.
The article should explain that in the future the EHT will add more observatories to increase the resolution. In short, the EHT is *scalable*.
1
@WLP, the two go hand in hand, though. Higher resolution *allows more magnification, which the article was implying. (..or more 'value-added' magnification, as you could magnify one pixel to be the size of a dinner plate)
"As I was walking on the stair
I saw a Black Hole that wasn't there ..."
-M. Goose, Astrophysicist
Now imagine this beauty imaged by three or four radiotelescopes in solar orbit, with a resolution based on an effective scope width not of ~8000 miles (12,900 km), but 186 million miles (300MM km). That would be to radioastronomy what the Hubble Space Telescope was to my 3" refractor scope I was so proud of at age 15.
"For the Splendor of the Skies" - old hymn.
3
This announcement and the science behind it are amazing and wonderful. But jeez, could this author cut the purple prose? Sauron--really? And the universe is not "malevolent"--that means having an evil will or intent; the universe has no will, it just is. The mathematics that predict black holes are not a "dark vision." Are we supposed to be scared? Black holes can never affect us in our lifetimes or probably the remaining lifetime of the earth. "Smoke pours from God’s computer"? What a ridiculous image. Please, Mr. Overbye, be a professional and leave mythological beings like gods and Sauron out of science articles. Your readership are not so mentally feeble that they cannot comprehend these natural phenomena without recourse to mythological imagery and horror movie scare tactics.
9
I've never understood what constrains a black hole from devouring the entire universe
1
It’s own inward pull of gravity
1
@JKR
A black hole is not like a vacuum cleaner, that sucks in all nearby objects. It is more like a golf hole on a large plot of grass, you fall into the black hole only if you pass sufficiently close to it. To put it another way, think of the Sun and our solar system. Most objects (planets, comets, asteroids) orbit the Sun without falling into it. And even objects that pass near the Sun like a spacecraft or visiting comet cannot fall into the Sun unless they are very precisely aimed to collide with it. Black holes are so tiny compared to surrounding space, it is very hard for any object to come close enough to fall in.
5
More exciting than the black spot is the confirmation of what goes on around a black hole, the donut of brilliant light.
3
This is a 2 dimensional photo of a black hole. What is the shape of a black hole in 3 dimensions? 4? 5?
Amazing experiments. One gripe--
NYT wrote: Nor do scientists know what ultimately happens to whatever falls into a black hole, nor what forces reign at the center, where according to the math we know now the density approaches infinity and smoke pours from God’s computer.
Why god? God doesn't know math, infinity, black hole..For that matter density. Please keep god (whichever, whoever's!), out of this.
9
@Naishadh Well Mr. Einstein spoke of God from time to time. It was never clear to me what he meant by the term.
@Jack Toner: I think if you read all he said, it's pretty clear he used it as a synonym for "Nature."
1
Fantastic scientific accomplishment, and kudos to NYT for giving it prominent coverage.
However, the description of black holes in the article seems a bit old school, with statements like "according to the math we know now the density approaches infinity". By way of contrast, there are emerging theories such as Loop Quantum Gravity which posit that Einstein's gravitational field is quantized (like every other field known to physics) and that space itself is granular, with a minimum grain size that is determined by Planck's Constant. If LQG is true (not proven) then there is no such thing as infinitely dense matter. LQG suggests there is a limit to the density of matter inside black holes, and that eventually repulsive forces might cause black holes to explode. However, due to relativity the extreme (but not infinite) density inside black holes causes time to slow down so much that it can take billions or tens of billions of years (in our time) for the explosion to occur.
Similarly, LQG suggests the idea that the Big Bang might actually have been a Big Bounce, where a previous universe collapsed to an extremely (but not infinitely) dense pinpoint, and then exploded back out as our universe.
Carlo Rovelli has a highly readable overview of LQG in his "Reality Is Not What It Seems" book, for those interested.
3
As an avid fan of science fiction since my teens to see this phenomenon which has driven so many plot lines in the genre is breathtaking. Science is not a belief system. It's is reality, based on facts some observable some not. So glad to have lived long enough to see this. It takes me back to watching the moon landing with my great aunt who remembered learning about Wright brothers first flight soon after it happened. We had advanced so far in such a short span of time.
5
We just travelled 55 million light years to be reminded that: (i) science is real; and (ii) we can accomplish great things by working together.
12
It would be cool for a rogue black hole to wander through our solar system...get a real close up view....for a bit.
1
Right - 55 million years ago! Talk about old news.
2
Wow, the first ever picture of a Black Hole in the universe and a large portion of respondents quibble over the phrase "malevolence of nature" in the Black Hole of the comments section of the New York Times.
1
Wow, just wow.
1
So cool!!!
3
Wow! What an astounding feat by all astronomers and astrophysicts! The Black hole is really a black hole with the surrounding orange/red glow disappearing into blackness. Looks like a bagel! Einstein is proving right even decades after his death.
Wow! Uplifting! A giant leap for mankind.
3
Correction: "The bigger the antenna, the higher the resolution, or magnification, it can achieve."
Magnifying a fuzzy image merely results in a bigger blob of fuzz. This sentence should read:
"The higher the resolution, the sharper and more detailed image, it can achieve."
Come on New York Times, don't dumb down as so many useless English language science magazines have! This is a fantastic achievement. It deserves better than George Orwell's hobbled "Newspeak."
2
Holy Einstein!
2
Science. ❤️
5
A black hole is a sphere.
An event horizon take place in all directions, not just a flat disk.
I don't know what data used to construct this image (it is not an optical image, of course), but if a black hole absorbs energy from all directions, it would look like a star, not a disk with a hole in the center.
Sorry to rain on the parade of our academic demi-gods, but don't get it. It doesn't make sense.
Check out this excellent explanation of what we actually see when imaging a black hole: https://youtu.be/zUyH3XhpLTo
3
"A black hole is a sphere."
Not if the black hole is rotating -- in that case it is an oblate spheroid. (That's an oversimplification -- Google "Kerr black hole" for details.)
"if a black hole absorbs energy from all directions, it would look like a star, not a disk with a hole in the center."
Popular explanations oversimplify black hole physics. In fact, photons can graze a black hole without falling into it. And you are not seeing a "disk" but the projection of a three-dimensional object onto a plane. The reason you see a "ring" is because there are more photons flying toward us on tangential trajectories than on radial trajectories.
NB: That is yet another oversimplification, because it doesn't explain the bright patches on the ring.
2
Is it just me, or does this image cause an almost trance-like effect? When first looking upon it, the image initially seems to shrink. My eyes then pull back to allow my brain to process the entire scene, only to have the hypnotic "drawing in" effect repeat over and over. Strange, and more than a little unnerving.
1
"If too much matter is crammed into one place, the cumulative force of gravity becomes overwhelming, and the place becomes an eternal trap, a black hole." -
Then eventually, it will grow until the entire universe is consumed, no?
@nom I'm by no means a physicist, but it seems the answer is no. We orbit around a very large ball of mass (the sun) and have little to no risk of ever falling into the sun in our foreseeable future. The sun orbits a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy in a similar way. Besides, anything dealing with the life of a star occurs over millions of years, so it won't effect our kids, or their kids, or their kids, continued 40,000 generations or more.
2
@nom Yep. But you still have to pay your taxes in a few days...
Not quite. the universe is expanding so fast and its expansion will only speed up as time goes on. long after our Sun expands and swallows the Earth, there will be black holes roaming around swallowing matter for quintillions and quintillions of years. And long after the last piece of matter has been swallowed the black holes will continue to wander the endless dark abyss and will eventually begin to lose their mass as well over so many more eons. Eventually there will be nothing but darkness, even black holes will be nonexistent. scary stuff.
This reminds me of the scene from Terry Gilliam's 1991 movie, "Time Bandits." The bandits are stopped cold by some kind of force field.
One of them says, "It's an invisible wall!"
Another says, "So THAT'S what an invisible wall looks like!"
8
Black holes have long captured the public's imagination. The basic theoretical make up has long been agreed upon. Like the big bang theory and expansion of the universe though, black holes will generate revisionist explanations over time. Now there is a picture of one. So there is no longer any reason to doubt their existence.
Absolutely stunning image! An incredible scientific and technical achievement. Bravo to all the scientists involved. And what is even more incredible is this is another validation of what is the greatest intellectual achievement of human history, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. How he developed all his theories is way beyond me, I just gaze in wonder at how every prediction he made becomes proven. We can all look in wonder at the heavens and feel glad to be part of this marvelous creation called "the universe."
3
Astonishing, amazing, astounding!
Words fail.
What a marvelous scientific achievement.
I hope I live long enough to see an even clearer picture of the object.
7
It's glorious and terrifying to see something so immense and powerful that will last for almost all of eternity and the author does a wonderful job of trying to capture the awe and profound meaning of this image with descriptions like, "the density approaches infinity and smoke pours from God’s computer." lol
4
"Some 55 million light-years away from here”. Time and distance. What is the real purpose of all existence? That's the most important question that comes to my mind when I read articles like this.
The only thing we understand is that smaller systems interact with each other to create, change or destroy bigger systems. What does motivate the smaller system to do that? My conclusion is that the whole universe is an intelligent being. Because it created these fascinating things we wonder and think of (including our lives). It goes beyond chemistry and physics.
1
Thank you to all who contributed to this amazing accomplishment. This is what it means to be human - curiosity; the drive to explore, to see, to understand. And, to be awestruck.
11
What an exciting article and image. A scale that my mind, trapped in space and time (and scientifically-limited), cannot truly fathom. This event scales political news, in particular, down to blip size.
3
This is a stunning achievement for mankind. I am thrilled to have lived long enough to witness this event. Now if we could only get a certain party to take one giant step towards the event horizon my life would be complete.
8
I took the exact same photo with my Polaroid about 30 years ago.
7
@JQGALT
Me too! But I've misplaced the image.
1
What a great article. Thanks to the writer and NYT.
3
It's great to finally see one. I view black holes as shell-type singularities, and work accordingly:
http://charlesrkiss.info/word/?p=50
Point-type singularities have a lot of unresolvable problems.
This remarkable photo reminds us that the universe is made up of invisible forces of incomprehensible power. I bet we are only just beginning to understand them. This photo also lets us know that, compared to eternity, we are mere particles, in St. Augustine’s phrase, infinitely small specks in an infinite creation. What a day!
1
We don't realize the magnificence of this moment. This is landing-on-the-Moon level.
16
Congratulations to the team, to Albert Einstein, to the human species and the power of thought. This dwarfs all other news on the front page. To me, it is a portrait of hope.
10
A small thing, but it does warm my heart to know that the team still had to use old-school sneakernet methods:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet#Non-fiction
1
Bravo to the NYTimes for alerting us to this unveiling. What a wonderful view they have given us. To look out and beyond all of our petty, petty bickering. What global cooperation among ethical scientists can produce ought to be used to teach us about humanity's potential unity. We will need that as we move into climate change disruptions yet unseen by anyone on this planet.
I loved the comment about the glazed doughnut - got a good, uplifting chuckle from that! I say glazed doughnuts for all!
6
To our friends who interpret the Old Testament literally, who built the Creation Museum in Kentucky, this is another reminder that in order for our world, and creation in general to be just 7,000 years old: light we are seeing today was created millions and billions of years ago, and just now arriving. If that were not true and lights in the sky we see today were no older than 7,000 years, it would mean that all the stars and other objects in space would all be packed very tightly together in a small box outside our solar system. It is time to admit that human written and oral history is not science, but a story meant to try to make sense of life. Be happy with mystery, difficult concepts and curiosity!
20
The "malevolence" of nature..? I don't get that one.
5
The "Eye of Sauron." What a great name!
2
These photos and this thrilling scientific achievement spark wonder, curiosity, fascination, even fear. A host of human emotions.
But a reminder of the "malevolence of nature"? According to Merriam-Webster, malevolent means "having, showing, or arising from intense often vicious ill will, spite, or hatred." How does nature (which resulted in life on Earth) have will, much less spite or hatred?
Only humans -- and fictional beings like Sauron -- are capable of malevolence. Disappointing for a NYT journalist to sink into such silly, distracting hyperbole.
8
Amazing.
4
“resembled the Eye of Sauron, a reminder yet again of the power and malevolence of nature. It is a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity.”
“smoke pouring out of God’s computer”
Good grief! Could the author throw in a few more ridiculous similes? What ever happened to good, descriptive writing?
10
It's great to see a picture of a black hole finally. Wish that Hawking had lived to see the image. Maybe he beamed the photo across to the EHT.
The one disappointment is that Einstein still gets all the credit for it when clearly his equations make it a possibility however their existence did not even require Generel Relativity but using simple Quantum Mechanics that people like S. Chandrasekhar calculated the possibility.
Why not Oppenheimer and Hartland Snyder whose very nearly arrived at its existence theoretically.
What about Wheeler who coined the term and wrote a tome of a work simply called Gravitation.
What about Pierre Simon De Laplace who predicted it such a fate and posed the question in the 17th century in the first place?
No honorable mentions of any scientists except Einstein. While I love and adore A. Einstein, I think that credit should be given to these folks and not only Einstein. I mean, at least Hawking!!!!
10
The Universe is expanding but soon it will slow down then stop expanding, then at the center of every galaxy there is a blackhole, then every blackhole will suck their respective galaxy completely, then there will only be black holes remaining, then the bigger blackholes will suck up the littler ones, then at the end the biggest blackhole of them all will suck up all the remaining ones until all the universe will be inside a blackhole, then inside this blackhoke will be the universe and the cycle of time will begin once more, forever and ever.
2
Supermassive!
Competently written, but I take issue with the words in the third paragraph "the power and malevolence of nature." We should celebrate nature without invoking moralistic ideas like evil or good or bad, since there is none in nature.
17
Incredibly fascinating and so beautifully written. Thank you David Overbye!
This is amazing. What a great photo. I'm in awe.
2
It is amazing and mesmerizing to consider that the light that makes up this image left its source 55 million years ago. Just imagine! And the fact that this object in our universe is 7 billion times more massive than our own Sun is nearly incomprehensible. Congratulations to these scientists!
7
It is a genuine pity that Steven Hawking did not survive to see this image. It's awesome that Kip Thorn is alive to see it.
6
can we finally change the name of 'black holes" to something less demeaning? I think they are one of the most mysterious and most fascinating causal agents in cosmos.
2
@joel Have we reached the point where we're worried about offending black holes? Well, I get your point, they do have a hard time letting things go.
11
@Dave
Dave, I have you in the running for "Best Comment of the Year". "a hard time letting things go".....I laughed out loud for the first time in a long time.
3
If we destroy ourselves, all human knowledge will essentially fall into a metaphorical black hole. This latest finding is a stunning advance for science, but collectively we seem to be going in the wrong overall direction.
With the likely spread of nuclear weapons to less and less stable regimes, we risk getting closer to an oblivion worse than climate disaster. Maybe the evangelicals and various religious doomsday cults favor a fiery end to humanity (while they're magically spared), but I don't.
1
Extraordinary image, representing the culmination of amazing collaboration worldwide. To try to put the distance to this object into perspective, if our galaxy (itself 100,000 light years in diameter) were the size of a quarter, Messier 87 would be located across the street.
1
Amazing! My best friend's father was a professional astronomer; every time I hear of new astronomical news, I wish he were still alive to enjoy it.
For even more detail on the black hole photo, read this article:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/event-horizon-telescope-black-hole-picture
"How scientists took the first picture of a black hole" by Maria Temming.
There is a cool interactive using music to show how pieces of data can be assembled to get a whole picture.
2
I like to maintain a perspective: While the black hole is putatively the densest thing in existence, with presumably no material activity within, the most complex thing we know of is the human brain.
(no jokes regarding density!)
2
@Long Island Dave Well even with our super complex brains we have really no idea what happens inside a Black Hole.
Your point about the human brain is a good one.
Formerly Long Island Jack.
@Jack Toner Yeah, it's the complexity that gets us in trouble lol.
Nature is "malevolent?" Apparently the astronomical science writer thinks we humans are at the very center of the universe.
We are not. Malevolence aplenty may be seen in those of our species who deny science for personal gain. Nature would laugh at our folly - but it doesn't have a sense of humor, either.
Uh-oh.
11
The writing in this article is dramatic and poetic, conveying the awe and terror that blackholes inspire. Thank you, Mr. Overbye!
2
So impossibly distant and ominous, to be inside the accretion disk where every direction leads to the singularity, every step deeper into the black hole.
1
Simply incredible.
1
So, are the stars and our sun the mathematical opposite of a black hole?
Astronomy Picture of the Day has a great entry that provides useful context to this photo:
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990216.html
1
One thing that I've never understood (and that neither this article nor the referenced Times Magazine article explains), is how you get what looks like photographic images from radio waves. I just did a web search and didn't find the information either (though I only looked at a few of the top results). Anyone out there who can enlighten (no pun intended) me?
1
@gf I believe this is a simple conversion of frequency. Light is light at any frequency, even in non-visible ranges, so by simply shifting the frequency in the display to visual light, we can see what other frequency ranges emit.
1
Black Holes are as natural a result of Einstein's equations of general relativity as Man-made Global Warming is a result of basic undergraduate Physics. Too bad we can't take a picture of Hot Earth.
2
The photo of the “black hole” is astounding and should serve as a catalyst for a new prize—perhaps it could be called the “Life of Riley” prize—to be awarded annually to the individual(s) who photograph this phenomenon from the closest proximity to it...of course, not too close.
That donut looks delicious.
Pardon my candor, but with our planet in an environmental crisis, there is way too much time, energy, brain-power, and money the "gee wow!" payoff for fancy stargazing is really sad - no matter how your wrap it up.
Well then tell President Trump and the Republicans to start spending more money on ways to mitigate global warming. But first, get them to acknowledge its existence.
4
@Brad Steele how about we first cut money from our military. NASAs budget is miniscule in comparison. How many aircraft carriers do we really need?
6
@Brad Steele I wouldn't call it candor.
Our ability to understand the effects of green house gases came ultimately from a lot of scientific work which folks like you would presumably deride as useless.
The functioning of GPS depends on Einstein and he depended on non-Euclidean geometry created in the 19th century and regarded as the silliest of silly speculations.
Knowledge is like that. Never know where it's going to lead.
2
I wish they'd put a ruler by it to gain a sense of scale....
Seriously, science rocks!
1
Fascinating and food for thought.
The event horizon team accomplished this with a relatively small group of people working together.
There are 7-8 billion people on the Earth now.
Imagine what we could accomplish and discover if we all worked together.
3
The Universe is a clockwork; the Universe is turbulence.
The Universe is an equation; the Universe is chaos.
The Universe recycles itself.
1
Awesome bagel thought experiment.
1
I like science. I believe in science. But ho-hum. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to be amazed by this.
@Dave: It's the precision of being able to collect an actual direct image of this thing in the middle of a galaxy however many light-years away. There are a zillion stars in that galaxy, but they were able to focus in on this one item in the middle of all of them. That's getting really focused.
And it's gratifying that the image they got pretty much confirmed what they expected from their math. Math is nice, but it's always good to get a direct observation, to keep it real.
9
@Dave This photograph represents the first ever positive confirmation of not only the existence of black holes, but also what a black hole is, and by extension verification of the actual mechanics of spacetime. It proves and refines scientific theories that have driven the study of physics for almost a century. The picture may not seem like much, but it represents a wealth of scientific knowledge and a path toward much, much more.
2
To all of the NYTimes readers who are underwhelmed by the image, it is not the aesthetics of the image that is the point. The point is the astounding scientific and engineering achievement the image represents. I suggest that the unimpressed among us read more about the science and not focus on the image itself.
3
"...embarking on his new career as a tamer of extragalactic beasts"
Here is the point in this piece where human ingenuity and creativity meets its equal and opposite force, unbridled human greed and hubris, courtesy of Mr. Overbye.
2
There's a toilet seat business with that image. And the religions got the armageddon bits right. We are all being sucked in slowly. We all have Big Bang DNA.
Precisely what does "a one-way portal to eternity" mean>
2
@Bernie: They're not entirely sure yet. But at least they have a photograph!
2
Was it ever possible a black hole was going to be anything other than round and black?
I'm not being facetious.
Was there some chance that a black hole would actually look like, say, a green octagon? If not, then what's the fuss?
Does the novel information gained have to do with the ratio of sizes of the 'donut' to the hole itself, or the wavelengths of light coming from the 'donut', or... what?
This was a huge piece of work, we're told, but what are we actually looking at? What's the 'donut' made of? Gas? Stars?
Since the hole is black, because nothing ever comes out of it, is this really a "first look at the innards of a black hole"? What details from inside the hole can be gleaned if not directly seen?
The news is, apparently, that a black hole is indeed black and round. As predicted. Okay, 3 cheers.
I've got a PhD in molecular biology and I've read the article twice, and this still strikes me like a cynical description of some ecological studies: "The painstaking elucidation of the obvious"!
3
@Ambient Kestrel: That's kind of a good question. Obviously not a green octagon, but they might not have seen a bright donut. Suppose it had been just a bright dot? Or not bright at all? It would have been a nice touch if somebody in the project had given some suggestions of what kind of possibilities they were ready for.
What this did was to confirm a lot of their math, and as it happened, it confirmed it pretty closely, but we still need those observations. It isn't like medieval scholasticism, where you can sit in your study and figure everything out without ever going outdoors. Not yet at least.
4
@Ambient Kestrel:
This is not a picture.
It’s information. It’s new information that will provide insight and provoke questions that will lead to discovery of more information.
I would think that you would appreciate that.
2
Radio waves and a telescope...the new age of space travel. Another small step for man and a giant step for mankind. Congratulations!
3
I wonder if we could get a much improved image if we had an interferometer with a baseline of 239,000 miles, i.e., with a radiotelescope on the moon?
2
The press conference was so intelligent, so civilized, the panel so well informed, patient, enthusiastic, the questioners so polite and on target (including the high school students). It raises a question almost as urgent: does politics involve an altogether different (and not so appealing) species of human beings?
49
@Glenn W. Smith No, it involves different motivations.
3
@Glenn W. Smith I agree. The scientists were absolutely eloquent. It was such a pleasure to watch.
12
What an absolutely amazing achievement. Superlatives fail me to describe how I feel about seeing this picture and hearing how it came about. What a feat of knowledge, ingenuity, and collaboration. This, somewhat fuzzy, image makes me think of the first images we had of Pluto and then to compare them to todays. How far we've come! I can't begin picturing the distance from Earth to Pluto and even less so the distance from here to this Black Hole. And on top of it, the Black Hole is an object that can't be directly observed or photographed. I am in awe. How I wish to be a poet who can capture the beauty and wonder of this moment and this image and everything it represents.
13
This picture gives me more than I can handle just thinking about. It reminds me of that little spinning circle computer symbol that tells me a program is processing. What a small world.
4
The conundrum of the black hole is how it exists in the midst of an expanding universe. The massive concentration of gravity seems at odds with what appears to be a massive force pushing galaxies farther and farther apart. Clearly, something not yet comprehended is at work — dark energy, perhaps — that counters or deflects gravitational forces.
Yet there they are, black holes scattered through the expanse of space, attracting and swallowing all that comes near.
Which means to me that research into the cosmos is never, ever final.
18
This came out as I was teaching half-life to my chemistry class. When the image washed across my screen I nearly wept with joy. I've waited a lifetime to see this. I shared it immediately with my students and explained what it was it represented. A few of them were interested. Most just didn't care. Then I wanted to cry for a whole different reason. As glorious and complex as the universe is, too many humans lack the intellectual curiosity to care. And that will be our downfall when it shouldn't be.
79
@Mark
From a fellow chemist, warm wishes and a thought:
It has always been thus - individually, we are all but frail mortals. Yet, teachers, perhaps most among us, are the conduits for inspiration in many sundry ways. You teach a subject famously challenging to convey and can open the door to a way of thinking - hypothesis and testing - that can be transformative. In small things, you may change the lives of some of your students, even if they are few in number. I was the benefit of several such teachers in my youth - and a drug to treat a previously intractable cancer exists as a consequence.
Humanity moves forward, whether inspired by those who gaze to the heavens or who merely look up and extend a hand to those around us in need. The greatness of us as a species is as much in the seeking, as it is in the finding. And we grow collectively because of it, in one way or another.
Happy seeking.
5
@Beyond Concerned
mark -
i almost wept too.
2
Wonderful and terrifying. Eloquent and mystical.
8
I don't know which is more awe inspiring - The wonders of the Universe, or our ability to probe them from such a distant tiny speck of cosmic dust.
I remember when I learned that we could tell what elements stars were made of by analyzing their light spectrum. I couldn't believe that we could know something so definite about an object so far away via such a simple method. And yet, we do.
Just as we have the ability to analyze an object, Ultima Thule, which is only 19 miles long, from a distance of 4 billion miles, using a space probe we sent out over 13 years ago.
I also remember when I came to understand that the iron in our blood was made in a supernova. No supernovas = no humans. Or any element between oxygen and iron, or the neutrons needs for so many others for that matter.
Certainly, the Periodic Table, itself, is one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science. I believe it was a Russian scientist who first formulated it. And it illustrates how integral international cooperation is in our ability to make the greatest discoveries. As it was in this case.
If the Universe is anything, it is the organization of chaos.
Besides awe, I think the greatest power of the Universe is it's ability to humble us. Perhaps that's what makes it so awe inspiring? The point where the ultimate complexity of the human mind meets it's mirror in the ultimate complexity of the Universe. That point when one looks deep into the endless mystery of space and finds oneself revealed.
31
Spectacular! Thank you for taking us to space where physical laws prevail.It helps to put our earthly problems in perspective.
5
Confirmation of the existence of black holes underscores the need for humility across all disciplines. What we know about creation is dwarfed by what we don't. The unknown contents of black holes, the existence of dark matter, shifting understandings of the timing and nature of the universe's origins, the continuing search for a unified theory, not to mention unanswerable spiritual inquiries, remind us that there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy.
4
This article is elegant. The scientific undertaking and the resulting photograph are awe inspiring and the piece captures the magnificence and beauty of both in a way accessible to non-scientists. Thank you to the scientists and NYT.
8
My 4 yr old grandson drew this image a few years ago
5
How can something (a data set) be too big to transmit via the internet? Would it fry all the servers in the world?
1
@wordnerd There's a saying we have in the IT world: "No one has higher throughput than FedEx."
Even with our fastest fiber networks, transmitting data takes time. When you have hundreds of terabytes to transmit as I suspect each of these facilities did, it can literally take days (And that's if the communication isn't interrupted by one of the dozens of things that may force you to start over). In contrast, you can buy hundreds of usb keys with thousands of terrabytes in total and ship them off in a manila envelope for next day delivery.
8
I suspect it was too big to transmit in a reasonable amount of time such that delivering it on hard drives was much faster. @wordnerd
1
Wow! Congratulations to all on their achievement. And to this elegant write-up of it.
6
A black hole is a space trap for all matter. The comparison to our world is that it exposes us to the petty insignificance of our day to day mundanity — our vulgarity -/ in the face of evil. It’s got something for me to do with the way social media has swallowed up us whole digesting only our commercial DNA with a gravitational pull into its greedy vowels.
2
It's a nice image, but...
I have to ask since I can't find reported here, where was this published?
Something like this needs to go through a review. I know a bit about optics, and in the normal diffraction limited telescopes this shouldn't have worked. I'd like to see how they got around this problem in detail.
Again, it's nice but this could be cold fusion situation or BICEP.
The telescopes used in this observation work in the spectrum of radio waves not visible light so the optical diffraction you mention is not an issue.
7
They did indeed have the paper reviewed before the press release; I understand that was part of the delay: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab1141/pdf
3
in coming centuries, this data will have a ripple effect on hard science and may provide clues to pure, free energy and the like. the implications are staggering~
1
For anyone who might think that the image appears a bit blurry, consider that the full image is about 1/500 (back-of-the-envelope math) of a single Hubble Space Telescope *pixel*. It's actually incredibly sharp.
6
If we could put a telescope on the moon and lash it together with these others, would it increase the virtual size of this telescope? Would that make any difference in what we'd see?
1
Yes, that would potentially help the resolution quite a bit, but it'd be ideal to have some in various levels of Earth- and Earth-Moon-system- orbit, too - you want as many different lengths between pairs of telescopes as possible; one telescope on the moon would add a lot of pairs that are all about the same (long!) distance. Unfortunately even if we could build them, gathering the data from them would be *really* difficult (note that they had to physically ship multi-TB hard drives for today's result).
3
" ...smoke pours from God’s computer." ????? What, exactly, does this phrase mean?
7
@Phil Dunkle: It doesn't exactly mean anything. It's a metaphor that also refers to things that don't actually exist. It's an attempt to evoke an appreciation of extreme conditions under which calculations and measurements fail. It does so by referring to things that may have some connotation for us.
6
It’s the boundary marking the intellectual divide between what we know and what we don’t know. It is an oddly peaceful feeling to realize that such an object exists. Just like the singularity of a black hole, boundaries marking this vast territory are what help define eternity. Most quieting is that these boundaries are always moving forward relative to us so as to be fuzzy & just beyond our ravenous grasp.
3
What an incredibly well-written piece.
3
That's no black hole. It's just a thermal image of my donut.
2
Really? All that money and brain power for that?
I sorry but I just don’t see the value in this. We can never approach a black hole and understanding them gets us where exactly?
@Mark Marks It gets us further away from ignorance. Please read this again.
5
Understanding the universe around us?
They did have 4 main goals. You can look them up in less than 30 seconds.
3
Wow! A grinning cyclops. So glad the universe appears to have a sense of humor!!!
3
This is awesome. I'm certainly not a scientist, but I don't understand how they say a black hole has infinite density in a single theoretical point. It seems to me, if that was true, then it would suck in everything from the whole universe. It must be very dense, like hard to understand dense. But something must still be a certain distance from it to be entrapped. To me, that indicates finiteness. Tell me what I don't understand?
@Mark Manders a black hole does not have infinite density. "density approaches infinity" is not the same as reaching infinity. There is no definite understanding of what happens below or near a plank length scale (10^-35 m).
2
I can't remember when I've read a piece of "scientific" prose so loaded with anthropomorphic, quasi-religious, emotional language.
Just one example of many: "The image ... resembled the Eye of Sauron, a reminder yet again of the power and malevolence of nature. It is a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity."
In my book, science popularization is a vital task and those who do it well (e.g., Martin Gardner, Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan) are heroes. They never spoke of "the malevolence of nature."
18
I am very comforted by the importance the media gives to the first vision of a phenomenon that has been expected since the beginning of the last century thanks to the genius of Einstein and the work of all astronomers. To survive, mankind should open its horizon much more to the wonders of the universe that surrounds it than remaining prisoner by tiny and trivial events like today.
4
What a triumph of humanity! Thank you, New York Times, for your coverage and prioritizing of this marvelous scientific achievement. It speaks volumes of humanity’s ability to delve into the complexities of the universe with positivity, collaboration and dedication to the Truths of science. What a great day for humankind!
6
In these times, when it so often seems that real leaders have been replaced by narcissistic megalomaniacs whose self-interest is their only motive force, it is truly inspiring to see a real stable genius like Shep Doeleman lead a team of 200 globally distributed scientists to a universally significant and historic achievement. It restores one's faith in the capacity of the human spirit to connect with other human beings and work together as a collaborative team to achieve great ends with good will for the benefit of humanity.
9
What this does to the concept of god, for me, is throw it all under the bus. That a God could invest itself with the daily living concerns of we atomic specks is beyond belief. Our God would be an area manager in a bureaucracy of bureaucracies. it all reminds me of
National Lampoon's classic takeoff on Max Ehrmann's poem 'Desiderata' titled 'Deteriorata' where Christopher Guest wrote:
"You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back."
6
Amazing. I hope that this will inspire many young people, and not so young people, and all people to continue to study science, or re-discover their love of scientific inquiry. Stupendous to be able to see a picture of a blackhole from across the university.
3
Nothing, not even light, can escape a black hole. Well except for the enormous jet of subatomic particles spewing thousands of miles into space.
Hey,
I've seen this before.
This is a stunningly scientific achievement. The misuse of the word "malevolent" is a gross journalistic faux pas. "Magnificent" would be more appropriate. Without black holes there would be no galaxies, planets, Earth, or...us! Add in the adjective "wonderful".
9
For every nine posters who say this feat of science is astonishing, one poster says it's over-hyped.
To that one poster out of nine: On your scale of exciting things, if the first photograph of an actual black hole doesn't move you nearly to tears, what qualifies as astonishing?
13
Incredible! Not only the image, but the amazing people who worked to make it! Einstein was proven correct yet again. What a time to be alive for science geeks. How unbelievable that we live in a place with phenomena as exotic and strange as black holes.
The EHT had so many doubters. Now I hope that people will buy into it, and the funding and science behind it can be greatly expanded. Make Science Even Greater!
3
Once again I am grateful for the Times' coverage of this and many other important matters. I tried to watch on TV and no "news" shows were carrying this live feed. Just stupid stories about upcoming movies. Stunning achievement.
3
I thought it would be blacker. (not that I am complaining)
2
Amazing image. But . . . a note to Mr. Overbye and the Times copyeditors: It would have been nice, for us non-Tolkien fanatics, to have identified the source of the reference "the eye of Sauron."
3
@G. Adair google?
@C White I did Google; otherwise I wouldn't have known what it was. I'm just saying one shouldn't have to.
1
For an event that happened 55 million years ago of an object that swallows light and in effect should be invisible - this is truly a mind blowing moment.
We see this and are awestruck. It really goes to show what collaboration and hell bend determination bears fruit.
2
What's with all the mysticism in this article: "Eye of Sauron,” “malevolence of nature,” “one-way portal to eternity,” “smoke pours from God’s computer”?
9
@Matt I sent my post before I saw yours. We agree. As you may know, Hawking's The Brief History of Time ends with a line about the "mind of God"; Hawking later wrote an essay expressing regret for having used that phrase.
2
@Democritus Indeed, this type of language is disappointing.
2
Cool.
3
Some people may poo poo this as a boring image. But it represents a stunning triumph for astronomy - it could have shown anything - but it confirmed that Black Holes are real, and not just a theoretical product of mathematics.
Besides the science - this represents a technical triumph. The image has an angular resolution of only 60 millionths of an arc second. This is the most zoomed in image ever captured by any human instrument.
To put that into perspective - the human eye can resolve 60 arc seconds. The Hubble Space Telescope, two hundredths of an arc second. The largest optical telescope ever proposed - the OWT at 100 meters across - would be 40 times better than the Hubble - around a thousandth of an arc second. If its ever built.
This radio telescope is still a thousand times more powerful than that proposed optical telescope... and they are still improving it.
751
@lothian: Get your facts straight before you poo poo something. Interstellar didn't show light captured from a real black hole. It was just a computer simulation of what Einstein's equations predicted. So of course they could show as much resolution as they liked, since none of it was real.
79
@Daniel, interesting perspective. By the way 60 arc seconds, i.e. 1 arc minute, is the number generally reported around, but people with better than average vision have a resolution of 30 arc seconds, and people with sharp vision go way beyond.
4
@Daniel
It was funny for me to open the comments section and read anything about poo-pooing because I thought it was immediately amazing for what it represents. The image reduces my fear, yet it is also sublime. It sparked my imagination.
13
Phenomenal! Bravo to the cooperative, questing, excited scientific community. I'm grateful we managed to devote funds to real science, grateful for the science writers who translate the excitement for us, and grateful for the involvement of brilliant women on the teams that made these achievements possible. Nice to celebrate real accomplishment for a change.
12
Not sure if this a myth, but I once heard that over 95% of astronomers and astrophysicists believe in God. Their work allows them to see how remarkably expansive, sublime, and elegant the universe is, that it compels them to conclude that only an all powerful “God” could have created such.
2
@HB, I imagine that is quite far from the truth. There is good reason that education and religiosity are inversely proportional.
I've never understood the mindset that something beautiful must have been created by God. Nature is beautiful and fascinating without the need to attach some supernatural origin to it.
10
@HB " I once heard" thank you for your empirical data. Studies hoave shown that 30% of "scientists" in the Us consider themselves religious. They did not specifically look at those scientists athat are physicists. "Religion among Scientists in International Context: A New Study of Scientists in Eight Regions" Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World , Volume 2 september 2016
4
@HB proof that those that believe in absurdities will continue to commit atrocities.
1
Such amazing work by these scientists. I love high-IQ people!
5
When we are confronted daily by the worst human behaviors and motives, how beautiful to see an image like this that confronts the wonders and mysteries of the universe, and in doing so, ennobles us all.
"What a piece of work is man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"
7
Like another commenter, my thoughts went back to the movie Interstellar. By coincidence or thoughtful contemplation the movie was very close in its depiction to this image. The soundtrack is playing in my mind as I see the video in the article.
"A reminder once again of the power and malevolence of nature."
Nothing in Nature is malevolent. Only humans can act malevolently.
6
@Dave And yet, we are a product of Nature. If nothing can be created outside of Nature, then...
Black-hole math involves division by zero. Why do physicists not mention that? Black holes are theoretical entities that exist only in mathematical equations--equations that divide by zero! Even Einstein said they couldn't manifest physically, but no one wanted to listen to him them.
@Ralph Huntington "then explain what we are looking at, and why scientists knew is advance what the picture would look like.
2
@David Tagliaferri not having designed the experiment nor studied it's specifications, I cannot speculate as to what we are seeing in that image. I would ask you to explain how division by zero is acceptable in any investigation of physical phenomena.
@David Tagliaferri, also please tell us what you make of Einsteins assertion that black holes cannot manifest physically, and also what makes you think he was wrong about that (in addition to answering the division by zero question). Thank you.
One name blazes out in all of this magnificent human accomplishment; Einstein!
6
Excellent story about a major triumph of human science until "God's computer" was brought into the tale. Are we never to escape the fatuous nonsense of superstition? Religion had a point until science gave the answers. There is no point to it now, even if updated with whimsical references to a deity using an iPad, PC, or maybe just a smartphone.
5
@KWunderly - But the very term “God” is a human definition applied to something completely intangible to help give some organization to how and why all things came to be. Boiling it down to a simple term - be it God, Allah, etc. only serves to help one try to grasp it all. It’s only problematic when we assign a force like that human traits, like displeasure or judgement. That doesn’t negate the existence of such a force, though.
Even physicists have theorized the universe may be a form of complex “simulation” , which like any program, would necessitate some kind of “programmer”. Obviously we’re not talking about a bearded guy in a flowing robe here - but rather something well beyond comprehension.
2
And from those of us who aren’t scientists, bravo to the journalists who wrote and edited the very understandable article!
11
An image of space, matter, and time all disappearing would be remarkable enough, but the image has been retrieved from 55 million light years away? Astounding.
7
The kind of breaking news I prefer to wake up to. Congratulations to everyone one the project and all your hard work. What an astonishing image!
6
I love this entire story, but one graf was extremely frustrating (and I think kind of disrespectful to a director/producer who goes to great lengths to ground his mind-bending fiction in tactile realism): "For some years now, the scientific literature, news media and films such as “Interstellar” and the newly released “High Life” have featured remarkably sophisticated and highly academic computer simulations of black holes. But the real thing looked different. For starters, the black holes in movies typically are not surrounded by fiery accretion disks of swirling, doomed matter, as are the black holes in Virgo and Sagittarius."
In "Interstellar", fiery accretion disks of swirling, doomed matter are exactly what the black hole is depicted as being surrounded by. I get the point of this paragraph, but did the author and editor look at the black hole from "Interstellar" before citing that film as an example of this discrepancy? When I opened the article and saw the hero image, my first thought was, "Oh, that looks exactly like the black hole from 'Interstellar'". It grates because that movie got shredded for the smallest, immaterial scientific flights of fancy—but what it bent over backwards to get right is ignored. In conclusion, check out the black hole from "Interstellar", because it looks exactly like the real thing (and will inspire awe).
Thank you.
2
Amazing! I'm getting emotional!
Amazing! Humanity keeps turning small steps into GIANT LEAPS
Interesting: "abyss so deep and dense that not even light can escape it." An apt description of our global situation, I would say, and now a picture, like we're looking at a mirror deep in space...
2
Endlessly fascinating. More money for scientific and medical research. What’s $7+-billions spent on a silly wall when what’s desperately needed is knowledge about the place(s) we’re privileged to inhabit. Let’s study this now—while we still have time. The day will come when our puny galaxy disappears into a black hole.
4
This is "easy" science. Spend a gob of money and take a snapshot. Wow. Big deal.
I call this "scientific imperialism" by cloistered scientisits.
How much did this cost? Is "big science" worth it?
It would be nice if these scientists would stop slapping themselves on their backs and
Solve poverty
Figure out how to make learning possible
Stop kids from dropping out of school
Stop gun violence
Stop domestic violence
Stop war
Balance the budget
Stop drug deaths and suicide....
These are tough problems.
Snapshots of outer space at the beginning of time are easy.
Science is easy.
The above questions are tough. And these scientists twiddle their thumbs while the earth crumbles.
How about some pictures of opiod, starvation, gun deaths to put things in perspective.
Vietnam Vet
2
@Michael We should be able to do everything if we set our priorities right - even science. In fact, science and evidence based research will and does provide the information we need to solve earth-based problems. We just need the political will to implement the solutions.
4
@Michael very thoughtful, your priorities are right on bro! I would add many, many healthcare related problems, environmental solutions, and energy to your excellent list.
@Michael I understand how you feel. I appreciate this kind of research too because it gets my mind off if the negative parts of life that you spoke of in your reply. The scientists who are involved in Space exploration are not the ones who would solve more Earthly problems but maybe you could. You seem to have compassion and empathy for others. Get involved with a group. You would be an asset.
4
Amazing. There is nothing more accurate than the accuracy of good math. Congratulations to all the Nerds who persevered at this. You are the best !
3
Except for the misuse of the terms "malevolent," "waiting for something to fall in", "crouching", and "God's computer", none of which belong in a scientific exposition, this is a very good, very understandable, article. The universe is none of those terms, it just is
5
@George Hebben, you are correct, the universe "just is." Mathematics gives us the ability to understand how the "is-ness" functions. All other descriptions are but attempts to convey ineffable reality with the inherently limited tools of human language. I find Overbye's metaphors exuberant and enlivening; he's helped to spark my imagination and make my experience of learning about this achievement much richer and more resonant than "objective" scientific exposition could have possibly been. Thank you, amazing scientists, and thank you, Dennis Overbye!
1
I was hoping to read in this piece a nod to the English clergyman, John Michell, who first posited the possibility of black holes in the 1700s. Did I miss it? It's not a big matter -- so to speak -- but would add to the romance mentioned here.
After all the hullabaloo, the general public, used to amazing CGI spectaculars, may find this cosmic Krispy Kreme somewhat underwhelming.
1
What a breathtaking image. It illustrates how utterly hostile, bewildering (and yes, beautiful) the universe is as well as the potential genius of human kind. We happen to live in a tiny blue miracle in the middle of all this hostility and yet, anti-science people do not care if all of this is destroyed by our own hands.
3
The sheer scale of space continues to humble. This black hole is 5,000 light years away, so of course we are seeing it as it was 5,000 years ago (about the time Egyptians started using hieroglyphics as written language)
1
@Tim this black hole is 55 million light years away. Light left this black hole about the time a comet hit the earth and killed off all the Dinosaurs.
4
@David Tagliaferri Thanks for the correction! I was mind blown even while underselling it by 55 million years!
1
I thought this was going to be a picture of my bank account balances.
3
This is amazing!
1
On the cynical side: the real thing is so much uglier than all the artists' conceptions! But what a remarkable moment to not only realize how truly nothing we really are, but how much beauty is out there.
1
"Perhaps even more important, the images provide astrophysicists with the first look at the innards of a black hole."
Important to understand that no one has seen the "innards" of a black hole, or ever will. We don't see it, but the lack of anything behind it.
How far back in time are we looking at? I know when we are looking at the sun we see the sun as it was 8 minutes ago.
1
@Nightwood - As the article says, this object is over 50 million light years away. So that means what we’re seeing it as now is how it appeared 50 million years ago - the light has taken that long to reach us.
At this very moment, the object may not exist any longer... or could be even more massive by now; we’d have no way to know.
3
“Black holes are objects so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape from their gravity.”
Unfortunately, got the first sentence incorrect. Black holes are objects so *massive* that nothing, not even light, can escape their gravity. It’s absurd density that puts a black hole’s mass in feasibly small volume, but it’s mass that distorts the fabric of space-time.
Masha Allah its beautiful: We've imagined it, we've listen to it, now we see it. What will be next?
3
Incredible! It looks just like a black hole! Who'd a thunk?
4
I am gobsmacked!!!
"his new career as a tamer of extragalactic beasts," "smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity," "space and time come to an end and vanish like a dream," "fiery accretion disks of swirling, doomed matter," "quiver, bend, rip, expand, swirl like a mix-master," "crouching in the centers of nearly every galaxy," "monster runaway stars that collapsed and swallowed up their surroundings in the dawning years of the universe" ...
For years, Overbye's prose has been getting ever more breathless and purple, as if he's writing for a Marvel comic book. But he really outdid himself with this piece.
5
Well done!
2
The cosmic doughnut of doom
1
Mind! Blowing!
Black Holes aren’t black?
@Dan - Well that depends on which part you’re talking about. The center, which itself IS the hole, looks black to me.
The surrounding disk of material collapsing into it (the ring) glows orange/red.
1
The first image of a black hole. All I can say is "Wow"!
2
My bet is that all matter will eventually be sucked into a black hole, compress and then start the whole "big bang" business all over again.
1
This is awesome. We have glimpsed into infinity and eternity. We have witnessed the unfathomable. What is out there? But most of all, how and when did it all begin? How humbling to learn that our planet and those of us who inhabit it are not the center of creation. We are observers of the omnipotent, the etherial.
1
With all the insane things going on in the world, it's always grounding knowing that there are beautiful things still being discovered, and we as human beings are still looking up at the sky in wonder and still asking big questions. It gives me hope.
5
I am amazed that many comments said they just watched the video instead of reading the piece. The written piece was wonderful, as of course was the still photo itself!
3
"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
This kind of scientific research is both thrilling and humbling to this mere mortal. I'm imagining even Einstein nodding his approval. Congratulations to all involved.
5
Beautifully written piece - it doesn’t matter to me that I don’t understand it all, it’s enough to sit in awe of this achievement, and the cosmos.
8