The universe is filled with strange objects that have eluded the understanding of the brightest minds that humanity has had to offer, throughout its history. Slowly but surely though, we have managed to learn more and more and increase our understanding of the various cosmic objects and phenomena.
A black hole is one such object, which up until many decades ago, a lot of astronomers didn't even believe existed. It is one of the most fascinating objects in the universe as it literally warps spacetime around it.
It's gravity is so strong that no particles or electromagnetic radiation of any kind (such as light) can escape it. Once the particle or light crosses the event horizon of a black hole, there is no coming back, and that is the extent of our knowledge as far as the fate of the particles are concerned.
We simply don't know what happens beyond the event horizon. This is also the reason why we have never had an actual photo of a black hole. It is an invisible object. But recently, scientists have been on a mission to give the world the first ever photo of a black hole and we might have it very soon.
Seeing The Invisible
The Event Horizon Telescope project is a global network of telescopes that has been gathering data on the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy called Sagittarius A* for several years now. The goal is to come up with the first ever photo of the event horizon of the black hole.
It is surely an ambitious mission as there is a ton of space debris between the Earth and the supermassive black hole. Also there are tons of stars just swirling around the black hole due to its extreme gravity. This makes gathering pure data on the event horizon of the black hole, much. much harder.
But it looks like the EHT team has finally completed its mission as it is gearing up for a 'huge announcement' on April 10. In fact, they will be doing six major press conferences simultaneously. This just goes to show the magnitude of what they have to say.
From not even believing they existed, to being able to come up with a photo of the event horizon itself, humanity has definitely come a long way as far understanding black holes is concerned.