Black holes are among the universe's most exotic and elusive objects. Because nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational grasp, photographing one seems impossible. Yet an image of a black hole, or more accurately its shadow, could offer insights that theory alone cannot provide when testing predictions. So how can it be done?
Harvard astrophysicist Shep Doeleman and a team of 250 researchers achieved this feat by linking a group of radio telescopes around the world. This network, called the Event Horizon Telescope, produced the first image of a supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87, around 55 million light-years away, and the first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy.
In a podcast episode from Quanta Magazine, Doeleman tells co-host Janna Levin how he turned the Earth into a telescope capable of seeing a black hole, the extraordinary science and collaboration required, and how the images have deepened our understanding of these objects. He also suggests that movies of black holes may be possible by the early 2030s.
Levin, a physicist who has spent much of her career studying black holes, argues they have an unfair reputation. Rather than monsters, she describes them as remarkably elegant, simple systems. Though they are the darkest phenomena in the universe, they become some of the brightest beacons observable at the edge of our view. They also play a major role in shaping galaxies and history, and are fundamental to physics in a way few other macroscopic objects are.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing