You’ve seen black holes in science fiction movies and in illustrator’s impressions. But until the morning of April 10, you never saw what a black hole really looks like. And then there it was, the monstrous void at the middle of the galaxy Messier 87, staring back at you like the eye of Sauron.

The story of how one astronomer, Katie Bouman, became the face of the quest to visualize the singularity, was a good yarn, too.