Event horizon: 1st-ever black hole photo to be released in astrophysics milestone (VIDEOS)

A team of 200 pioneering scientists from across the globe is preparing to push the limits of scientific achievement and attempt to answer two key questions: is it possible to photograph a black hole and, if so, was Einstein right?

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is comprised of dozens of observatories that scan the area around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, named Sagittarius A*,  to piece together a silhouette of the black behemoth and provide humanity with its first-ever glimpse of a real black hole (as opposed to an artist’s rendering).

The “groundbreaking result from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project,” will be delivered in an announcement by the US National Science Foundation on Wednesday, April 10, at 9am EDT (13:00 GMT). Concurrent announcements will be made in Tokyo, Brussels, Taipei, Santiago, and Shanghai.

The black hole is 26,000 light years away, making it rather difficult to photograph, which is why the team combined radio telescopes from Chile, Spain, Mexico, Arizona in the US, two observatories in Hawaii, and one in Antarctica to capture the elusive snap. The 200-strong team distributed the surface area of the combined ‘global telescope’ across the planet in order to increase its magnifying power.

“More than 50 years ago, scientists saw there was something very bright at the center of our galaxy,” Paul McNamara, an astrophysicist at the European Space Agency told the AFP.

McNamara added that the bright object has a “gravitational pull strong enough to make stars orbit around it very quickly – as fast as 20 years.” To put that into perspective, our solar system takes 230 million years to orbit the Milky Way.

The brightness around the object was an accumulation of gas and plasma swirling around a black hole that is absolutely black and measures 22 million kilometers in diameter (by comparison, our sun is a measly 700,000km in diameter).

The astronomers are attempting to capture the silhouette of the black hole against this bright background provided by the swirl of gas, plasma, and other materials are that are falling inexorably into the abyss. The coordinated observations were also made in X- and Gamma-rays.

The team is hoping to produce a groundbreaking image and determine whether Einstein was right when he predicted the exact size and shape of the black hole’s shadow back in the early 20th century.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!