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Event / publication / experimentBranchesApril 2019

The first image of a black hole

Karl SchwarzschildEvent Horizon Telescope Collaboration

This page delivers no verdict; it presents claims and evidence with their sources. No theory in science is absolute. Method

For everyone

General relativity predicts objects so dense that not even light can escape: black holes. In April 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope published the first image of the bright ring around the black hole at the centre of the galaxy M87. In 2022 the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, was imaged too.

For specialists

Radio antennas around the world were combined by very-long-baseline interferometry at 1.3 mm to form an Earth-sized virtual telescope. For M87* a ring about 42 microarcseconds across was measured, consistent with 6.5 billion solar masses. The image was reconstructed with several independent algorithms; one independent reanalysis argued that the ring structure could be influenced by the imaging method.

Claims

Evidence

Supporting

Observation

Images made by different teams with different methods showed a ring of the same diameter.[1]

Challenging

Methodological critique

An independent reanalysis of the EHT data argued that the ring structure might be an artefact of the imaging process; the EHT team responded to this analysis.[2]

Connections

Parent

Astronomy and cosmology

Builds on

General relativity

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Sources

  1. ArticleEvent Horizon Telescope Collaboration (2019). First M87 Event Horizon Telescope results. I. The shadow of the supermassive black hole. The Astrophysical Journal Letters 875, L1DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7archive
  2. ArticleMiyoshi, M.; Kato, Y.; Makino, J. (2022). The jet and resolved features of the central supermassive black hole of M87 observed with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The Astrophysical Journal 933, 36DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/ac6ddbarchive

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Cite this page

APA

Athena contributors. (2026). The first image of a black hole. Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/kara-delik/

BibTeX
@misc{athena_kara_delik,
  title        = {The first image of a black hole},
  author       = {{Athena contributors}},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/kara-delik/}},
  note         = {Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Accessed: 2026-11-01}
}

Added: September 27, 2026 · Last changed: September 28, 2026 · Page history

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