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Press Release

Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et al. Astronomers capture first image of a black hole | Download this Image The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) -- a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration -- was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow. This breakthrough was announced in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun.

To download videos, push play and click on the arrow icon . ANIMATION (Contains no audio)

If you could fly next to the supermassive black hole M87*, this is what you would see. (Version with explanatory text on screen is available below) Credit: National Science Foundation BRIEF, SELF-CONTAINED, NARRATED OVERVIEW

with a simple explanation of how the EHT works and the black hole image it captured. Includes a soundbite with the National Science Foundation director and the Event Horizon Telescope director. Credit: National Science Foundation Download Transcript

PDF Downloads

EHT Poster w/ Black Hole Image Download this PDF

NSF Press Conference Panelist Bios Download this PDF

NSF/EHT Fact Sheet Download this PDF

History of NSF Support for VLBI Download this PDF

Video Assets To download videos, push play and click on the arrow icon . VIDEO SOUNDBITES: Sheperd Doeleman, EHT director, talks about the EHT project. Credit: National Science Foundation Download Transcript VIDEO SOUNDBITES: France Córdova, NSF Director, talks about the importance of collaboration and NSF's role in this significant discovery. Credit: National Science Foundation Download Transcript

VIDEO SOUNDBITES: Peter Kurczynski, NSF astronomer, talks about the science of EHT. Credit: National Science Foundation Download Transcript VIDEO SOUNDBITES: Joseph Pesce, NSF astronomer, talks about the science of black holes. Credit: National Science Foundation Download Transcript

ANIMATION â forming an Earth-size telescope â 10 seconds

Eight telescopes around the world are synchronized with atomic clocks, creating a virtual telescope dish as large as the Earth itself. Credit: National Science Foundation ANIMATION â forming an Earth-size telescope â 14 seconds

Eight radio telescopes around the globe, synchronized by atomic clocks, all look at the same black hole at the same time, and that creates a virtual telescope dish as large as the Earth itself. Credit: National Science Foundation

OBSERVATORY B-ROLL

Contains 8 EHT telescopes and 2 data centers identified on slates. OBSERVATORY MONTAGE

Contains 8 EHT telescopes and 2 data centers identified on screen.

ANIMATION WITH EXPLANATORY TEXT ON SCREEN

If you could fly next to the supermassive black hole M87*, this is what you would see. Credit: National Science Foundation

Image Assets

Radio waves from distant celestial objects arrive at different points on Earth at different times. For VLBI to work, these waves must be matched wave-for-wave at each and every station. To accomplish this, the EHT uses ultra-precise atomic clocks, which time stamp the data. Later, when the data are combined, astronomers can ensure that each observatoryâs data align with the data from all the rest.



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Black holes are so difficult to detect that no single instrument can even make the attempt. Instead, any effort to image a black hole will require a team of telescopes, all working together, using a technique called interferometry. This graphic from NSF's National Radio Astronomy Observatory explains interferometry and how collaborations like the Event Horizon Telescope use it hunt for black holes.



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For the Event Horizon Telescope, resolving the image of M87* from petabytes of information was a Big Data challenge. This infographic helps explain how they accomplished that monumental task.



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The South Pole Telescope is located in Antarctica, the most extreme location of the eight telescopes in the Event Horizon Telescope Array. It is one of two in the array managed by the University of Arizona. Photo credit: Junhan Kim, The University of Arizona.



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