The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.
The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun.
Supermassive black holes are relatively tiny astronomical objects — which has made them impossible to directly observe until now. As the size of a black hole’s event horizon is proportional to its mass, the more massive a black hole, the larger the shadow. Thanks to its enormous mass and relative proximity, M87’s black hole was predicted to be one of the largest viewable from Earth — making it a perfect target for the EHT.
The shadow of a black hole is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole’s boundary — the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name — is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across.
Here’s a really silly comic of Tony adopting a puppy…
A lot of you wanted to see him with the prosthetic, here’s a doodle of how I imagined it!! It has padding on the inside for where it attaches to his shoulder, but as well as on his foot like an actual paw pad.
P.S. He carries that Ironman plush around all the time, even if it’s a bit too big for him..
🎥O
arco natural de Tripidos era uma das belezas de Paxos que queria muito
conhecer. Não foi fácil pois não há sinalização, não tenho GPS, internet
ou aplicativos de mapa off-line. Cheguei a ouvir que sozinho seria
impossível encontrar a estrada secundária mas pedindo ajuda dos
moradores locais, tentando entender um pouco de grego misturado com
mímica, foi possível! Adoro um desafio! 😁 Se dá medo de andar ali em
cima? Depois eu conto 😊 ✨
The natural arch of Tripidos was one of the beauties of Paxos that he wanted to know. It was not easy because there is no signage, I have no GPS, internet or offline map applications. I even heard that it would be impossible to find the secondary road but asking for help from the locals, trying to understand a bit of Greek mixed with mimicry, it was possible! I love a challenge! Are you afraid to walk up there? I’ll tell you later.