Shutterstock
We’ve all heard about black holes in space, but we’ve never actually seen one. Well, it seems we may finally be on the verge of seeing something truly incredible – “groundbreaking” even.
Next week, the European Southern Observatory is likely set to release an image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A. Or we will at least see their attempts to photograph it.
The European Commission and European Research Council are holding a press conference on April 10, 2019. This is, of course, in conjunction with the Event Horizon Telescope project to share its results. Outside of that basic knowledge, we’re not exactly sure what they plan to reveal.
Black holes, of course, are not visible. They absorb electromagnetic radiation, so we really don’t have any technology that can detect them. What we can potentially see, however, is the event horizon, though this is still incredibly difficult. This is essentially the outside edge, the point at which light can no longer escape.
It’s possible that the photo will depict a bright ring of light surrounding a big, dark blob. But no one really knows what to expect. What we do know is we’ll almost assuredly be witnessing something that humankind has never before seen.
Found at the center of our very own Milky Way galaxy, 25,000 light years away, is Sagittarius A. For years, the EHT has been trying to catch a glimpse of this black hole’s event horizon. According to Science Alert, it’s also “shrouded in a thick cloud of dust and gas,” adding to the difficulty involved.
In 2016 though, the telescope took direct radio images of the site. Researchers have been processing the data ever since, and it seems next week may finally bring us the big reveal.
The EHT is comprised of a vast network of radio observatories all around the world. For the past 13 years, researchers involved in the project have been trying to image an event horizon. In addition to Sagittarius A, they’ve also looked towards a neighboring galaxy – Messier 87 – which also has a central black hole.
