Scientists behind first black hole image bag $3m prize

Scientists who captured the first image of a black hole were recently awarded an “Oscars of Science” for their astronomy achievement.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team, which revealed photos of a mega black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87 in April, won a $3 Million Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, said a Breakthrough Prize press statement.

The Breakthrough Prize, an annual competition that recognizes the world’s top scientists, recognized the EHT team for their supermassive black hole imagery that was taken by an Earth-sized alliance of telescopes.

Earlier this year, the EHT team, which was a global collaboration of scientists, used eight radio telescopes that were strategically placed around the world in Antarctica, Arizona, Chile, Hawaii, Mexico, and Spain to capture an image of a black hole for the first time.

READ ALSO: YouTube to cough out $170m in settlement over alleged violation of kids’ personal info

The EHT team synchronized each telescope with a network of atomic clocks and developed a virtual telescope as large as our planet.

One of the EHT Collaboration’s first targets was a supermassive black hole located at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy.

After studying the data with algorithms and techniques, the team created an image of this celestial giant, which was silhouetted against warm gas surrounding the black hole and matched expectations from Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, an illuminated ring marking the point where light orbits the black hole, surrounding a very dark region where light can’t exit the black hole’s gravitational pull.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now