NSF Announces First Imaging of a Black Hole

Here’s what it looks like:

That’s the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, a “super giant elliptical galaxy”, some 53.5 million light years away and is 120,000 light years in diamater.  However, being spherical in size, its mass dwarfs the Milky way (which itself is estimated to be between 100 and 120 thousand LY in diamater, but spiral/disk shaped in form).

The super massive black hole at the center of M87 is thought to be between 3.5×10⁹ and 6.6×10⁹ solar masses and is apprxomately .39 light years in diamater.

Einstein’s predictions on general relativity and gravitation are being verified once again.

And, predictably, “science fiction has become science fact”.

Here’s a link to the live streamed NSF conference.