For the first time, real images of black holes to be released

Image: NASA

The world is waiting with bated breath to see the first set of actual images of black holes. For years these mysterious celestial objects have been the most intriguing part of all astronomical discourse, and has led to the creation of various science fiction movies and books. And so far, these have all been based on assumptions of how it may look, never really actually knowing the nuances of it.

That is set to change today, as the first taken pictures of Sagittarius A, the black hole located at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy, will be released. This will prove to be a landmark moment for the scientific community, which was made possible by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

All the previous images of black holes shared by NASA and other scientific bodies were mere illustrations, some created by artists, others based on data gathered from telescopes. A real photograph or at least an outline of it could not be taken so far due to a lack of collaborative engineering.

Now, the EHT, is actually a collaboration of radio telescopes spaced out around the globe. They are joined to create a Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI), close to the size of the Earth. The reason why an array of telescopes is used is because combining their signals boost their power.

A CNET.com report states that this large observatory was necessary because though the black hole photographed is four million times larger than our Sun, it's still very far away, 26,000 light years to be precise.

The EHT's observatories are located in Chile, Hawaii, Arizona, Mexico, Spain, and the South Pole. The synchronized image produced by it was combined using a supercomputer to arrive at the first images. In fact, you’ll be surprised to learn that the data for the images to be released, were gathered way back in 2017.