On April 10, scientists released the first visual evidence of a supermassive black hole. The image, a result of international collaboration between scientists and eight separate telescopes collectively known as the Event Horizon Telescope, shows a blurry orange ring and\u2014that\u2019s all. \u201cSometimes seeing is believing but in this case not seeing is believing,\u201d says professor of physics and dean emeritus Tom Helliwell. Of course, the dark space inside the orange ring is the black hole, which lurks some 55 million light-years away from Earth in the M87 galaxy. \u201cThe bright ring around the black hole is emitted by the matter orbiting the black hole, gradually drifting inward as it orbits, until it approaches the event horizon and subsequently vanishes from our view,\u201d Helliwell says. \u201cEvidence for black holes has been very strong for a long time now,\u201d Helliwell says. \u201cThe picture is a graphical confirmation that black holes really do exist in the nuclei of galaxies. The first-ever picture of a black hole is very impressive. Einstein would have been amazed!\u201d<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s so amazing about it? We surveyed Helliwell and other members of the Harvey Mudd physics community to find out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of scientific reasons to be excited about the discovery, but in some ways, I think the biggest impact for the general public is the visceral nature of the images: that we can actually see the black hole as a hole in the Event Horizon Telescope image,\u201d says physics professor Brian Shuve<\/a>. Until now, he says, \u201cevidence has always been in a slightly more abstract form\u2014we see them by the very high energy particles that are ejected in the vicinity of the black hole, but we don\u2019t actually see the hole itself. So it\u2019s exciting because we can see black holes in a real, tangible way that we haven\u2019t been able to before.\u201d<\/p>\n