First Image of a Black Hole

The social media has shaken with the picture of black hole nowadays. Here is some informations about it.

The social media has shaken with the picture of black hole nowadays. Because this is the first time that whole world witnessed the image of a black hole. Guys, we have witnessed a historical event! 10th of April 2019 will be in the history books soon.  

To begin with, what is a black hole. "A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. Because no light can get out, people can't see black holes. They are invisible." Black hole’s gravity is so overpowering that even light cannot escape its centre. There are two types of black holes: one of them are twenty times bigger than the sun while the other at least a million times bigger.

Hi I'm that black hole :)

How they could take this photo? We have this photo thanks to an international scientific collaboration which is called Event Horizon Telescope project. They did it with establishing a network of eight telescopes across the world. The picture is taken after a period of ten days. You may think that we have already photos of moon, other galaxies or sun so what makes black hole so special? It is special because normally black holes do not allow light to escape. Thus it makes really difficult to view them.

What can we infer from that picture? It gives validation to one of the most consequential theories in physics like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. I am sure he is so happy in his place right now :)


The EHT project team did not only share the picture with us. They have also published six research papers in the Astrophysical journal. So if you are interested in the topic, I suggest you to read it from the link here https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2041-8205/page/Focus_on_EHT

After talking about this great achievement, I also want to talk about some important details as well. Let’s meet with the female graduate leading the charge:

Dr. Katie Bouman

She led the development of the algorithm that would lead to the production of the first-ever image of this black hole. However, it is not fair to make all the attributions to her, as she says herself: “No one algorithm or person made this image”. Yes, we know this is the work of a group project. Even so, it is a great chance to show that women are in everywhere. By the way, as we are talking about the group, I also want to mention about a Turkish woman who is in the group: Ferya Özel. She is known as "one of the most clever women in the world".

All in all, women are not just mothers; they are not only dealing with housework. Women can be whatever they want. They can both clean the house at home, they can be well-groomed at outside and they can develop an algorithm that leads one of the world’s most important scientific achievement.