Expected Soon: First-Ever Photo of a Black Hole

Maybe we will get to see Schrödinger's cat

Wow! This is so exciting and, as the kids say, way cool. If the images are as hoped, we will be able augment our imagination with an actual image and bring another piece of the universe that much closer to being 'real.' More than just understanding the cosmos in which we exist, what is so fascinating is the knowledge we are gaining on the very nature of existence itself -- or, in this case, the non-existence black holes represent. Right now, however, it is nice just to have some positive news outside the daily drama of life. Better yet, news that brings perspective on how ultimately unimportant is so much of what we have elevated to world-shattering drama. It is very calming.

The word photograph implies using photons (of light), which as I understand it, would be impossible in the case of a black hole, except to see the absence or bending of light around it. Since the article says radio telescopes are being used, I think the correct term would be "radiograph" or perhaps just "image"

I believe this will turn out to be the photograph(s) of the inner workings and structures of many imaginations - cloaked in mathematical underwear.

In ancient eastern cosmology (Hindu Jain Buddhist) concepts of black holes were mentioned and accepted. Ramanujan, a self taught mathematician, Ramanujan, a devout Hindu, thought these patterns (mock modular forms) were revealed to him by the goddess Namagiri, when he came up with mathematical functions. "While on his death-bed in 1920, Ramanujan wrote a letter to his mentor, British mathematician G.H. Hardy, outlining several new mathematical functions never before heard of, along with a hunch about how they worked....Now, researchers say they have proved Ramanujan was right, and that the formula could explain the behaviour of black holes." Now finally in 2019, almost a century later, there is excitement that astronomers expect to actually see a black hole. But let us not expect Dennis Overbye or anyone in NYT to mention any ancients, their cosmology or acknowledge Ramanujan's mathematical contribution. It was a pleasant surprise that he mentions "Priyamvada Natarajan, a Yale astrophysicist who is not part of the project, said, “It’s exciting, even just technically, to get this up close and personal to a black hole.”

You know something? I just don't feel overweight anymore; in fact, I feel downright light. Not to mention miniscule. So I'm ditching that diet I've struggled with for (light-?) years.

Please be aware that there is no such thing called black hole as a singularity of spacetime because Einstein's relativity has already been disproved both theoretically and experimentally: We know the physical time shown on any physical clock is T = tf/k where t is the theoretical time, f is the frequency of the clock and k is a reference frame independent calibration constant. In Newton’s mechanics, f is a reference frame independent constant too. Therefore, we can set k = f to make the clock show the theoretical time i.e. the absolute Galilean time t: T = tf/k = tf/f = t. But in special relativity, frequency f is a reference frame dependent variable and can’t be eliminated by setting k = f. Thus, T can never be relativistic time t: T = tf/k != t. Therefore, relativistic time t is never the clock time i.e. the physical time which we are using to observe all physical phenomena. On the other hand, when a clock is observed in another inertial reference frame, we have t’ = rt and f’ = f/r and T’ = t’f’/k = rt(f/r)/k = tf/k = T, where r = 1/sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2), which means that the physical time T won’t change with the change of the inertial reference frame, and is Lorentz invariant and absolute, as confirmed by the universal synchronization of clocks on the GPS satellites. More details: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297527784_Challenge_to_the_Special_Theory_of_Relativity and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297528348_Clock_Time_Is_Absolute_and_Universal

Will the expansion of the Universe cause black holes to dissipate? And, what if the Event Horizon Telescope included a dish on the moon or Mars? Would it be a huge improvement or just incremental? Just wondering...

As the article states, there is an assumption that this is a black hole. It may be something even stranger. It's a leap of faith. We don't even know what Dark Matter is even though it takes up (or we assume) much of the "known" (another assumption) universe. Basically, we are all in the dark. One right remember that 99 percent of historical science has been eventually proven wrong, including this statement.

I was surprised to read that some (all?) black holes are so big. 15 million miles !!! I have been thinking of them as a ‘singularity’, a point of infinite density. A point as defined in first year geometry. If not and they are many many miles in diameter, should I start revising my understanding to think of a BH as having the qualities of a neutron star? Something very hard. Something solid. I like the idea of this super hard-ball spinning very quickly, a giant flywheel spinning around many times per second. Thinking pulsars here. But I’ve read elsewhere that BHs spin much more slowly. So much to learn. So much to read. So little time. More articles please.

Fantastic news, and I’m sure it’s a huge achievement, but I’m betting that, to the layman, it’ll look like just a grainy b/w photo of a fuzzy dot. I’ve long been wondering if the hype and teasing that a lot of science reporters and scientists themselves do in the lead up to major announcements are counterproductive. You say something like this without further detail and people imagine seeing a photo like what they saw in movies like “Interstellar”. If that isn’t what people should expect, you should say so or there will inevitably be some disappointment that will dull people’s admiration of your findings. I personally will be excited about the fuzzy dot, but I’m expecting broader public disappointment if that’s indeed the main visual from this.

Since we are talking about once in a life photo - here is worth a reminder from Richard Avedon: “There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth."

From the time I was old enough to read Cosmos by Carl Sagan, I've wondered how much more knowledge would be captured before my time was up. At 48 years, I couldn't have imagined how much has been revealed, and how each revelation would be accompanied by even larger, more complex mysteries. For now, I remain giddy at the thought of "seeing" a black hole within my lifetime. I feel like that little girl again. Thank you Mr. Overbye and NYT.

Why do we continue to challenge the basic fact of the Universe? We humans are ill-equipped to understand the Cosmos. Name a religion - they all describe the end of times. What our "science" tells us is that we are ill-quipped to fathom/to understand what lies within the trillions/zillions of eons before the universe annihilates itself. Is there Heaven at the end or is there ultimate annihilation? Scientist or plebe, religious or not, we have no way to "know." What it does tell us is that there is time to change our attitudes and adapt to what we call "human" if only we can see what it is to be "human."

I am a little surprised at the looseness with which this article is written. Black holes are infinitely dense. This means that no matter what their mass, they only occupy a single point in space. Their mass determines the size of their event horizons, the region within which not matter or energy can escape. Therefore, it is even impossible to view beyond the edge of the event horizon, in the case of the Milky Way's black hole, 8 million miles from the black hole itself. So it sounds like what has been viewed, is the severely warped space-time region at the edge of the event horizon. This is extremely cool and amazing to be sure, but not quite as described in this article.

Black holes, a misnomer if ever there was one, and a visible one is a further misnomer. A black hole is only evident due to the effect it exerts on whatever is present in space, in close proximity to the force being exerted by it, in its particular location on the fabric of spacetime. Einstein, Hawkins, and many other discerning minds saw, see spacetime as a fabric, a weave perhaps, bent, twisted, ripped in certain areas, folding back on itself, roiling, alive with energy, spread across eternity, no beginning, no end, at least not in any way that makes sense to our current immature intellect. On the undulating weave of this fabric of spacetime is all of existence itself, entire universes each containing individual galaxies, each galaxy alive with visible matter including moons, planets, suns, long dead suns, all manner of waste from exploding and collapsing suns, interstellar dust and debris, and alongside this we have dark matter, itself the largest mass in spacetime, massive limitless existence roiled continuously by the energy that was/is always there, never dissipating, simply wandering hither and thither across this eternal fabric of spacetime. This matter warps the fabric, not unlike the force exerted by squeezing a baloon, creating valleys, channels, and dimples in the fabric. I posit that spacetime is the fabric on a balloon-like construct, and black holes are tears in the fabric, allowing the vacuum inside to draw existence within; if true this does not bode well

My dad, Gopal Narayanan, is one of the lead scientists working on the LMT (Large Millimeter Telescope) in Puebla, Mexico. His trips to Mexico over the past 20 years have been regular for my whole life. Throughout my childhood, I remember my parents talking for years about the struggles of getting funding for the LMT and the countless long and sleepless nights my dad spent working on the telescope, both from home and on-site in Mexico. Seeing Mr. Overbye's article "Black Hole Hunters" featuring my dad on the front page of the NYTimes was incredible, but the arrival of this announcement makes me more proud than I can say. The sacrifices my dad and my family have made over the past twenty years for this project are finally paying off after years of difficulties and hard work, and I could not be more proud and excited. This is just the start.

This is purely astonishing. I’m amazed that we will be able to see such an event. While Mike Pence says he wants to send another man to moon instead of going further to confront the final frontier we call space.

It is exciting to finally be able to see "nothing", as a black hole has, by definition, gravity that even light cannot escape from. In regards to the large, but not oversized and not that active black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way: that is yet another ingredient of the "goldy locks" situation we are fortunate to be in. A really large black hole that very actively accrets mass like M-87, which has the huge jet to prove it, is also a source of enormous amounts of high energy radiation that may well make the surrounding inhospitable to life as we know it for thousands of light years.

Hi NYT, Thank you for dedicating editorial space to black holes. In your article you state that "the universe is speckled with black holes waiting to vacuum up their surroundings". It is a wide spread misconception that BH's suck things in. BH's don't do that. They are not cosmic vacuum cleaners. If the sun would turn into a black hole overnight, all the objects that circulate the sun - incl. Earth - would continue to do so. Even objects that enter the space between the BH's "border" (it's not a physical border as such, it's an event horizon) of this overnight BH and the original border of the sun, can assume - albeit funky - perpetual orbids, without being "sucked" in. It's true that objects that cross the BH'S event horizon can't escape the BH. But that's not because the object is "pulled" in (in Einsteinian physics there is no such thing as a gravitational "force"). Instead objects can't leave the BH because there is no way out. Literally. Radially outward isn't an available direction for an object in the area between the centre of the BH and the event horizon.There is no path on the fully distorted space-time fabric an object can follow that leads to an exit. Recommended readings & viewings: website Hubble Telescope; PBS Space Time

Who isn't totally excited to see a picture of Absolute Nothing?!?

I love the endless pursuit of knowledge. So much more rewarding and more interesting than religion.

Give Dennis Overbye a raise! This was wonderful writing. It's fun just to be alive right now.

Incredible writing. I can’t wait to see what’s in store on Wednesday. And, as another commenter pointed out, it’ll be nice to *maybe* see some other headlines beyond what Trump is doing for once.

"Event Horizon Telescope are expected to unveil their long awaited pictures of a pair of putative black holes." We know from the hairy ball theorem that their should be tufts in the vector field of a ball when trying to make a vector field tangent to the surface. What I would like to know is if light trapped orbiting in the photon sphere can later exit at the poles. If the event horizon is warped from tidal forces and equatorial bulging then this might be possible. I want to see two radio jets at the poles perpendicular to the plane of rotation. I know GR predicts complicated storms on the surface around the black hole that eventually merge. I hope at least one pole has a tuft or radio waves escaping and ideally two tufts due to the tidal forces the black holes exert on each other.

We have been fascinated by Stephen Hawking’s black holes for over a third of a century based on Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, but eventually Hawking informed us they are not really black and there is no event horizon exactly. Everything from ‘black holes’ to dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe is theorized using Einstein’s theory. Einstein claimed that the bending of light passing near the Sun, famously measured by Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse, and also that the precession of the orbit of Mercury around the Sun were due to space-time deformation as characterized by his theory. In essence, he claimed that the explanation for the phenomena is that the geometry near massive objects is not Euclidean. Einstein said that “in the presence of a gravitational field, the geometry is not Euclidean.” But if that non-Euclidean geometry is self-contradicting, then Einstein’s explanation and his theory cannot be correct. How can it be correct if the title of the Facebook Note, “Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity Is Based on Self-contradicting Non-Euclidean Geometry,” is a true statement? Just check out the Fb Note, at the link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/reid-barnes/einsteins-general-theory-of-relativity-is-based-on-self-contradicting-non-euclid/1676238042428763/

What do you mean "First Ever"? Today’s lead story has a picture of one. OK! Just kidding! Looking forward to seeing the real item.

Evansvans This is truly wondrous to behold though it doesn’t look like our hall closet which is what our mother told us it assuredly was.

Does anyone remember hearing the Chirp when we "saw" those two black holes collide? The chirp reminded me of a sparrow. Not some mighty and beautiful jungle bird. So if colliding black holes sound like sparrows what does that make us? We who can set off nuclear weapons and play Bach on mighty organs in old Gothic Cathedrals? I love this stuff and so much better than thinking about you know who.

"The other target is in the heart of Messier 87, a giant galaxy in the constellation Virgo, where a black hole 7 billion times the mass of the sun is spewing a jet of energy thousands of light-years across space." Feeling small and insignificant yet?

My one AND ONLY complaint with all this is the color enhancing that is sometimes doe. This muddles the border between what is actually visible and what is a representation of either radio waves, infrared rays, or some other non-visible energy. I get it, from the standpoint of understanding what we are 'looking at' without being able to actually see it...but is the image above of the beautiful dual color swirl actually what one would see? It sounds like a small point - but given how surprising and unpredictable our universe it, to grasp what we can of it, requires a baseline of simplistic guidance. Something as simple as "what you are seeing here, is visible with the naked eye, even though it's far to far away to see." Looking forward to the release of this data. It's very exciting indeed.

Wonderfully written article. I have 20 images of outer space, from Windows settings, personalisation, background, that I've set to turn over every minute in a slideshow on my desktop. The theme is called, Cosmic Beauty. I've relabelled it 'out of this world'. So peaceful and serene; and always remember to look up at the night sky, at night, as there's so much beauty and serenity to see, above you. And it's all free!

In a world that isn't seeing a lot of good news these days, it is wonderful to see that science is still making a positive impact and will eventually put all of the myths of willful ignorance to bed permanently!

Wow! This is mindblowing! What an amazing achievement this is going to be; we live in extraordinary times! I wait, patiently, for Wednesday!

To be accurate, it won’t be a photo of a black hole, which can’t be photographed because it emits no light, but rather of the material that surrounds it.

As an avid watcher of the Science Channel, I have seen countless CGI images of black holes. What a thrill awaits Wednesday morning to actually stare into the belly of the beast! Science is revealing the wonders of the universe and I am glad to have a front row seat.

"In such shadows the dreams of physicists die, time ends, space-time, matter and light disappear into the primordial nothing from which they spring, and the ghosts of Einstein and Hawking mingle with history and memory. For the first time, astronomers will be staring down the pipes of eternity." Pure poetry. Thank you for a really great article.

Beautiful writing on an amazing subject. Thank you for this article. Anxiously awaiting Wednesday’s news.

This is one that has been on my bucket list that I never thought I would live to see. Only in my imagination have I viewed the footprints of the gravitational sinkholes that lurked at the centers of galaxies. Now somebody go out and find Hawking's once theorized fantastical mini-blackholes, if you have the time, space and energy for that matter.

Something to bring home the insignificance of our solipsistic carryings-on. If we could successfully confront the impending collapse of the biome, it would give me hope that our species is not just another dead end.

“It’s exciting, even just technically, to get this up close and personal to a black hole.” such a mirthful remark from a scientist... there have been many a Black Hole created within the LHC (The Large Hadron Collider ) which caused much concern amongst many a layperson, thinking they would "swallow up" the earth! Hopefully, having a snapshot of this Black Hole will bring support from the general public (and politicians), and the much needed funding for scientific research, and at the same time quell those pesky superstitions that have delayed scientific discoveries.

If God exists His favorite game is Hide and Seek or Cartoon Morning Cat and Mouse. Pat Mckeage Eagerly awaiting the pictures. Thank you all who made this possible.

Yes, it is absolutely "super cool"! I'm by no means a physicist, but to even TRY to ponder the sizes, distances, speeds, and phenomena of the workings of space and time leaves me dazzled. The piece is also beautifully written. On Wednesday, just for once, I'd love to see the images they're hoping have been captured--rather than the latest machinations going on in Washington and elsewhere--dominate the headlines. Maybe such images could shoot some rays of humility into human hearts and minds. We are not all that matters in the universe, by a long shot.

Arthur C. Clarke is eagerly anticipating the results, somewhere.