Messier 87 is a galaxy in the Virgo constellation
Image: NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute/WikiSky
How did they get the image?
From previous research, scientists knew there was a massive black hole in Messier 87 that they could point their telescopes at.
Black holes are relatively small and tricky to see with telescopes. This black hole is one of the largest we know of and it’s roughly the same width as our solar system. That’s small compared to the size of a galaxy.
There isn’t a single telescope on Earth that could make out something so small, so far away. Instead, the team used eight radio telescopes across four continents. Over 10 nights, these telescopes looked towards the centre of Messier 87.
The telescopes collected five petabytes of data (that’s five million gigabytes) that needed to be combined. The team couldn’t send that amount of data across the internet. Instead hundreds of kilograms of hard drives were flown around the world.
With all the data together, the scientists were able to get the same resolution (fine detail) as one giant, Earth-sized telescope. The combination of telescopes, known as the Event Horizon Telescope array, was just good enough to reveal this black hole.
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