this is the first-ever image of a black
hole released by the event horizon
telescope collaboration on April 10th
2019
it shows plasma orbiting the
supermassive black hole at the center of
the galaxy m87 the bright region shows
where plasma is coming towards us and
since it's traveling near the speed of
light it appears brighter when coming
towards us and dimmer when going away
this is called relativistic beaming from
the images scientists can tell that the
plasma is orbiting clockwise it takes
around 2 days for the plasma to complete
one orbit here we are looking at the
black hole using electromagnetic waves
with a wavelength of 1.3 millimeters
radio waves this was the part of the
spectrum used to make the image because
it can show us the features close in to
the event horizon and it can pass
through the accretion disk and
interstellar dust to reach our
telescopes the supermassive black hole
in m87 is very active meaning it's
constantly feeding on lots of matter
from its glowing hot accretion disk but
it also has narrow collimated Jets above
and below it here shown in blue thought
to be created by incredibly strong
magnetic fields the Jets extend out at
least 5,000 lightyears and one of them
appears to be pointing almost straight
at us
relativistic beaming is again the reason
we can see the jet coming towards us in
this hubble space telescope image but
not the one going away
since the jet is pointed almost straight
at us I'm thinking our perspective is
almost perpendicular to the accretion
disk but let's have a look at what we
would see if we were looking at
different orientations the warping of
space-time around the black hole means
we can see light even from parts of the
accretion disk behind the black hole
they are lens above and below the shadow
region not gonna lie this is so trippy I
could stare at it for a long time so the
big question most people are going to be
asking is why is the image so fuzzy
the answer is because it's so tiny don't
get me wrong the black hole itself is
huge supermassive in fact as measured
from this picture the black hole has a
mass 6.5 billion times that of our Sun
the actual size of its shadow is nearly
the size of our solar system but located
fifty three and a half million light
years away its size from our perspective
is only about 40 micro arc seconds
that's the angle it makes on the sky to
understand what that means
take the whole sky and divide it into
180 degrees then divide a degree into 60
arc minutes and an arc minute into 60
arc seconds divide an arc second into a
hundred and into a hundred again and
into a hundred once more and that is the
size of the black hole shadow only about
40 micro arc seconds it puts us at the
very limit of what we are
technologically capable of seeing in
fact to get this sort of resolution due
to the basic law of physics the
diffraction limit we needed a telescope
the size of the earth that being
impractical the scientists used eight
telescopes spread across the globe they
all simultaneously observed m87 and as
the earth rotated that helped fill in
the earth sized telescope that they were
trying to simulate but m87 was not the
only black hole they looked at they also
observed the supermassive black hole at
the center of our Milky Way galaxy
Sagittarius a star they haven't yet
released an image of this black hole but
this simulation shows what it might look
like it's much closer at around 26,000
light years away but also much smaller
with a mass only four million times that
of our Sun it's also less active only
periodically gobbling up matter and it
would have much more variation over time
with matter orbiting every four to
thirty minutes that's probably why we
all have to wait a little longer to see
the black hole at the center of our
galaxy
see for now the striking image of the
black hole in m87 confirms beyond a
shadow of a doubt that black holes do
exist the general theory of relativity
published over a hundred years ago is
supported again in spectacular fashion
in the strongest gravities and at the
limits of our ability to test the theory
what I love about moments like this is
the ridiculous extreme things these
scientists did these 200 scientists in
pursuit of a goal that seemed impossible
and yet they achieved it I want to
extend my personal congratulations to
everyone on the team for an amazing
discovery I'll be linking to all their
work in the description