The First Image of a Black Hole Was Released by NASA​

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The first-ever image of a black hole located at the center of a close galaxy known as Messier 87, has been revealed by NASA. The image was allegedly incredibly challenging to capture, and the result was a low-resolution picture.

However, as technology is set to improve over the years, we can expect future direct images of black holes to look better in a few years. What the image depicts is a possible active accreting supermassive black hole.

Supermassive black holes reside at the nucleus of most huge galaxies, but scientists still debate the possible process that took them to get there. What we know is that they are enormous, perhaps millions or billions of times the size of the Sun, and they can command star formation. Also, black holes are feeding with matter, and when they do it, they become the brightest objects ever found in the Universe. Over time, scientists have understood a few of their peculiar behaviors.

Black Holes Are The Universe’s Mystery

The very first simulation of a black hole was measured using a 1960s punch card IBM 7040 computer and was manually charted by French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet. Both simulations – the new one we mentioned above, and Luminet’s work – depict a black circle in the nucleus.

The black circle is the event horizon, the place in which the law of physics are irrelevant, as electromagnetic radiation, such as light, radio waves, X-rays and so on are not sufficiently fast anymore, in order to deflect velocity from the black hole’s gravitational pull.

Those kinds of simulations help scientists understand the extreme dynamics occurring around supermassive black holes. The understanding of these physics also helps shape the way we see the Universe and the cosmic objects when we look at pictures such as the one of M87.

Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.