We might have a historic picture coming our way soon.
Yahoo is reporting that we could get the first picture of a black hole next week.
And this is kind of a big deal for a lot of reasons, not least among which is because of how exotic black holes are.
We don’t mean exotic as in rare – they’re actually quite common, with the nearest one to Earth being located at the center of the Milky Way – but as in how they defy our expectations for an object in space.
They’re super dense objects and don’t allow light to escape their gravitational pull because of this. Yet they are completely invisible to the naked eye, hence the name.
The remnant of a collapsed star, they are the subject of a lot of speculation, ranging from using them for space travel to black holes being gateways to a parallel universe.
In a series of press conferences to be held around the world on April 10, Scientists will unveil the results of a planet-wide imaging technique that they used to successfully capture the first picture of a black hole, namely Sagittarius A, the aforementioned black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
Because of how light interacts with a black hole, the image we will see will likely be the event horizon or the point at which light enters a black hole’s gravitational pull.
Capturing the picture involved the use of the Event Horizon Telescope.
The telescope is actually eight different radio observatories located around the world, hence the press conferences in the U.S, Brussels, Belgium; Santiago, Chile; Shanghai, China; Taipei, Taiwan; and Tokyo, Japan.
Yahoo says that the “photo may show a dark blob surrounded by a ring of bright light.”
Of course, we will be sure to report on it as soon as information becomes available.
What do you think the picture will look like? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
