Snapping a black hole’s silhouette is like photographing an orange on the moon.
By Doris Elin Salazar | SPACE.com
Astronomers orchestrated radio dish telescopes across the world into an Earth-size virtual camera for a bold new experiment attempting to deliver the first-ever image of a black hole. The telescope collaboration is set to make a big announcement of results this week, and members also described their research approach at a talk in March.
Black holes are extreme warps in space-time that are so strong, their massive gravity doesn’t even let light escape once it gets close enough.
The astronomers‘ idea is to photograph the circular opaque silhouette of a black hole cast on a bright background. The shadow’s edge is the event horizon, a black hole’s point of no return. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a photograph of a black hole would be an important tool for understanding astrophysics, cosmology and the role of black holes in the universe.
The image almost looks like our concept of a worm hole.
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