On 10 April 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration released the first direct image of a black hole's shadow: a glowing ring of hot gas around the supermassive black hole in the galaxy Messier 87, 55 million light years away. The black hole has a mass of 6.5 billion Suns. The image was made from data collected in April 2017 by eight radio telescopes on four continents, linked by atomic clocks into an Earth-sized virtual telescope, and the data took two years to process. It matched the predictions of Einstein's general relativity.
Before and after
- 10 March 2019Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302
- 15 March 2019Christchurch mosque shootings
- 15 March 20192019–2020 Hong Kong protests
- 31 March 20192019 Ukrainian presidential election
- 10 April 2019The first image of a black hole
- 11 April 20192019 Sudanese coup d'état
- 15 April 20192019 fire at Notre-Dame de Paris
- 21 April 20192019 Sri Lanka bombings
- 27 April 2019Poway synagogue shooting
More in Universe & space
- 16 February 1948Discovery of Miranda
- 5 September 1977Launch of Voyager 1
- 4 March 1979Discovery of Metis
- 5 March 1979Discovery of Thebe
- 8 July 1979Discovery of Adrastea
- 25 December 2021Launch of James Webb Space Telescope
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 21st century.