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A Black Hole, Finally Visible

A Black Hole, Finally Visible

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- As astronomical images go, it was more than a little unnerving: a shimmering disc, swirling at the center of a distant galaxy, arcing around a body so dense that its gravity sucks in all matter and energy that crosses its path, rending the fabric of space and time. A black hole, finally visible to human eyes.

Captured by the Event Horizon Telescope, the image was unveiled at simultaneous press conferences in Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo and Washington today. It represented a striking scientific achievement and further affirmation of the theory of general relativity. It also offered something more numinous: a first glimpse of what the project’s director called the “most mysterious objects in the universe.”

Black holes are cosmic enigmas. They’re massive and immensely powerful yet nearly impossible to directly observe. They sit at the center of almost every known galaxy but astronomers don’t know why. Calculating what happens within them produces one of the oddest paradoxes known to physics. They seem to sing.

They’re also freighted with cultural anxieties about the violent and unforgiving universe humanity inhabits. The name, after all, is thought to derive from the Black Hole of Calcutta, a notorious prison from which few left alive. “You can throw television sets, diamond rings, or even your worst enemies into a black hole,” Stephen Hawking once said, “and all the black hole will remember is the total mass and the state of rotation.”

The photo captured the edge of what’s known as the event horizon, or the boundary in space-time beyond which no matter or light can escape, where the known laws of physics break down entirely. It appears as a circular black void surrounded by an orange disc of whirling galactic debris. Sheperd Doeleman, the director of the project, expressed astonishment at encountering “something so true.”

On one level, the project was simply a triumph of scientific collaboration. More than 200 researchers on four continents contributed to it, synchronizing a global network of radio telescopes that scanned a galaxy 55 million light years away and captured some five petabytes of data — an unparalleled haul that could yield insights for years to come. The contrast with the unserious space science that preoccupies the White House was hard to miss.

It also offered added support for the theory of general relativity, first postulated in 1915 by Albert Einstein, who found the implications of black holes so unsettling that he was initially skeptical of their existence. The photo shows almost exactly what his calculations would’ve predicted.

But perhaps the image holds a deeper significance, too. In a time of turmoil and triviality, it offers something transcendent: a glimpse into the clockwork of the universe. And who knows what secrets that ominous void might yet divulge?

Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.

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