Astronomers who have been using a global network of telescopes to research black holes will present “a groundbreaking result” on Wednesday that could transform the understanding of the mysterious objects.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project has been working for years to photograph the edge of a black hole for the first time.
The collaborative effort, involving scientists from all over the world, recently scheduled multiple simultaneous news conferences to announce its first results.
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), one of the organisations sponsoring the EHT, said the results could transform the understanding of black holes, gravity and even the universe.
Astronomers believe black holes, very dense objects with a gravitational field so strong that nothing that approaches its edges can escape, exist in nearly every galaxy.
“As everything around a black hole, including light, gets pulled into the object’s gravitational force, they can’t be observed directly.
“However, it is possible to study them by detecting their effect on other matter nearby, which is what the EHT is attempting to achieve,’’ NSF said.
EHT astronomers are linking telescopes to record interference around two supermassive black holes in the middle of the Milky Way.
Report says the project aims to put into focus the event horizon of the two objects, creating an image of the boundary of the black holes.
Albert Einstein first predicted the existence of the objects in his theory of relativity. (dpa/NAN)
