This news is sure to “suck” you in. With the collective power of 8 radio telescopes spread out along 4 continents, for the first time, we’ve photographed a black hole. As you can see it looks a little blurry, but for being 55 million light years away, this is amazing. Its mass is 6.5 billion times that of our sun. Not only is this huge news, this is one of the heaviest black holes known to date. It resides in the center of galaxy Messier 87.
Black holes are beautiful and scary. They warp spacetime, super heart anything around it, and nothing- not even light, can escape it. They’re confusing, and everything we know about them besides the fact they exist is mostly theory. What I’m excited and fascinated about is that in my lifetime we will never figure these out exactly. We can only hypothesize, debate, and come up with theories as research continues. We’ll never truly know what happens once you enter a black hole, but from what we know most likely every atom in your body will be pulled apart and you’ll die. It’s all theoretical.
