Feel small yet?
Astronomers have released the first-ever image of a black hole taken by humans.
The photo – taken by the Event Horizon Telescope programme – shows a black hole in a distant galaxy 500 million trillion km away, that measures 40 billion km across. That is three million times bigger than the Earth. Feel small yet?
It is also thought to be 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun.
The image was revealed at a press conference n Washington on Wednesday afternoon.
According to the National Science Foundation,
Here it is. Just gaze into its awesome depth.
A black hole is a body of mass with such a strong gravitational pull that nothing, not even particles or light itself could escape. Which would make photographing it pretty difficult.
“Black holes are objects so massive and so compact that light cannot escape,” says Shep Doeleman, director at the Event Horizon Telescope programme and senior research fellow at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. “We think they exist throughout the universe, but we have never seen one.”
Here’s an explanation from NASA, who are infinitely more qualified to explain it than we are
Hearing about #BlackHoles this morning? Here's a refresher on what a black hole IS. 🤔 It's a place where a large amount of mass has been squeezed into a tiny space. The gravity is so strong that not even light can escape from a black hole. Learn more: https://t.co/lkbaYWv5cz pic.twitter.com/RVuuxpaJPG
— NASA (@NASA) April 10, 2019
