EHT set to release first actual images of a black hole

KUALA LUMPUR, April 10 (NNN) — The world will get to see for the first time actual images of a black hole, one of the most mystifying phenomena in the universe, thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, which will present its first results in multiple simultaneous press conferences around the world Wednesday night.

In a media statement released on its website today, the EHT said the first results of the collaboration, which came through the combined work of many radio observatories or radio telescope facilities around the world, will be also shared through many satellite events organised by its stakeholder and affiliated institutions.

The radio telescopes had gathered data of two black holes, namely the Sagittarius A* which is 25,640 light years away at the centre of the Milky Way and a much further mystery, the M87, to compile the images.

Press conferences will be held simultaneously in Brussels (in English), Lyngby (in Danish), Santiago (in Spanish), Shanghai (in Mandarin), Tokyo (in Japanese), Taipei (in Mandarin), and Washington D.C. (in English), starting at 13:00 UTC (9pm Malaysian time).

Some of the press conferences will be also streamed live online via several channels including Brussel’s European Comission Youtube Channel, and Santiago’s ALMA website and their social media sites.

In Taipei, the Academia Sinica channels on Youtube and in Tokyo the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan channels on Youtube will air the press conference. In Washington, the US National Science Foundation Live Stream and Youtube channel will air the press conferences.

For stargazers out there, be prepared though to be disappointed with the images. They may not look as exciting as the images produced by illustrators and computers so far, but they will certainly be historic and significant even if just a spec of a light is all that is there in the final result. 

–NNN