Our first ever view of what a black hole looked like was in April 2019, when a direct image of a supermassive black hole and its vicinity was revealed through observations made by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. This super-massive black hole lives at the center of a supergiant galaxy called Messier 87 (fifty five million light years away from Earth). That image confirms scientists’ predictions of black holes and their event horizon.
Image of a black hole at the centre of galaxy M87 and its event horizon, taken by the Event Horizon telescope in 2019. Photograph: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/EPA
Video graphic – A fantastic new visualization of a black hole shows how its gravity distorts our view of it by warping its surroundings. The simulation shows the accretion disk – a thin hot structure where in falling material has collected. The extremely intense gravity of the black hole skews the light emitted by different regions of the disk giving it a warped, misshapen appearance.
The picture below highlights and explains the various aspects of the visualization.
Visualization of a black hole by NASA
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/ Jeremy Schnittman
Saima Baig
I am a Chartered Environmentalist from the Royal Society for the Environment, UK and co-owner of DoLocal Digital Marketing Agency Ltd, with a Master of Environmental Management from Yale University, an MBA in Finance, and a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics. I am passionate about science, history and environment and love to create content on these topics.
