A 'black hole' is a region of spacetime where the gravitational force is so strong that nothing - including light - can escape its pull. The idea of these objects had been posited theoretically as far back as the 18th century. Albert Einstein did much to establish the existence of black holes in theory with his general theory of relativity, but he himself had his doubts as the concept was so bizarre.
Another scientist who spent much of his career devoted to black holes was Stephen
Hawking, who described a theory that black holes emit radiation. He would
unfortunately pass away a year before the first photo of a black hole, above,
was released.
The
photo taken by the Event Horizon Telescope on 10 April 2019, is actually
a series of telescope arrays. The black hole is in the galaxy Messier 87, and
the hole is some 7 billion times the mass of the Sun. Black holes are thought
to exist at the centre of many galaxies, including our own.
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