Most of the science we do doesn't make headlines. As scientists, the hours we spend in the field, lab, or behind a computer usually amounts to papers that end up being read only by other scientists working in the same, very specific areas.
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But sometimes something happens in science that is really big. Front page news big.
This week was one of those moments.
On Wednesday, April 10 the world saw the first-ever picture of a black hole. And it is just amazing.
Black holes form when large stars collapse in upon themselves, and their mass becomes concentrated in a small area -a black hole.
These holes are really dense, with extremely powerful gravitational fields. These fields are so strong they stop anything from escaping - even light.
And this is why it's been so hard to study black holes, and why this week's image is so stunning.
The black hole in question is a super-massive hole in the galaxy M87 - a huge galaxy a mere 53 million light years from Earth. Capturing an image of a black hole at the centre of another galaxy is no mean feat.
What we are seeing is the black hole, surrounded by super-heated, radioactive gasses.
This particular black hole is so tiny (when you consider it on a cosmic scale), and so far away, that to see it scientists needed a gigantic telescope - something around the size of the earth.
Of course we can't build a telescope that big. Instead, scientists used the combined power of different radio telescopes from around the world, a network known as the Event Horizon Telescope. Back in 2017 this telescope was pointed towards M87, collecting the data to create the image released this week.
Although this started in 2017, it's taken some time to retrieve and combine all the data. The files generated from each telescope are so massive that they need to be stored on separate hard-drives, and physically transported to a central location to be combined.
One of the telescopes used was in Antarctica, which held up this collection a bit. Once all the physical hard-drives were collected, scientists then had the task of stitching all that data together to form a single image.
The end result? An eerie, slightly fuzzy bright orange ring, surrounding a shadowy core.
What we are seeing is the black hole, surrounded by super-heated, radioactive gasses.
The border of the black hole is known as the event horizon - the boundary at which its gravitational pull is so great that it's impossible to escape.
Up until now astronomers have only been able to detect black holes indirectly. This image is finally confirmation of over a century of theoretical work. And it's likely to be followed by more.
The Event Horizon Telescope has also been keeping an eye on Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole that sits at the centre of our galaxy.
Sagittarius A* might prove even more difficult to get a clear image of, but it's quite cool to think that we now have the technology that could help unravel one of the mysteries of our own galaxy.
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