On Wednesday, April 10th, astronomers announced that they had finally captured an image of a black hole. This scientific leap is significant because there is so much unknown about black holes including their appearance until now.

A black hole is a “region of space-time exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing—not even particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from inside it.” Essentially, a black hole is a cosmic trap door that is physically unseeable. The part of the black hole that scientists captured is the event horizon (a region in space-time beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer); it is considered the point of no return.

During a period of 5 days in April 2017, scientists used eight telescopes around the world in collaboration in an attempt to photograph a black holes event horizon. The image “depicts luminous gas swirling around a supermassive black hole at the center of M87, a galaxy 54 million light-years away.” Once all the telescopes collected enough data the information was sent to multiple groups of scientists who used a specific algorithm in order to put together the pieces of the puzzle to form the picture we have now.

A student from Lakewood High School commented on the subject “Things like this blow my mind, it is amazing what science can achieve especially through the teamwork that has taken place during this process. I can’t imagine what the next great scientific discovery will be and when it will happen, it truly excites me” – (Ahmed Muhammed)

Scientists all over the world are now beginning to expand what we know about our universe to a whole new level, what is the next greatest discovery.