In April of 2019, scientists and radio astronomers around the world came together to share the world’s first image of a black hole. In a stunning polynational consortium, radio astronomers from 20 different countries utilized their radio telescopes to image the black hole in the center of Messier 87, the largest object on the entire Messier catalogue of 110 objects. This consortium used many of the world’s most prestigious telescopes, along with atomic clocks, two custom built supercomputers (think about that custom built computer at your friend’s house and multiply that by 150,000), and several new computational techniques in image acquisition, to take this incredible image of the black hole. Messier 87 itself is black, but is lit up by an intense glow of radiation that surrounds it; when I see this, I think about a star being engulfed by this enormous black hole. The astronomers were able to image the radio waves emanating from this source and capture the black hole itself, specifically the ultra-dark, round source existing in the middle of the image. This image is often considered among the most important images ever taken, excluding, potentially, the first Hubble deep field and pale blue dot.

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