🕷️ Crawler Inspector

URL Lookup

Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 16 (from laksa174)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa016.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47873592\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47873592\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-47873592","crawl_time":1774108530,"first_indexed_time":1554902225,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,bbc!www,\/news\/science-environment-47873592 s443","src_root_hash":"1643509356818581016","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"First ever black hole image released","meta_descriptions":["The \"monster\" black hole is three million times the size of Earth."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"10 April 2019\nPallab Ghosh\nScience correspondent, BBC News\nEHT\nThe first ever picture of a black hole: It's surrounded by a halo of bright gas\nAstronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy.\nIt measures 40 billion km across - three million times the size of the Earth - and has been described by scientists as \"a monster\".\nThe black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world.\nDetails have been published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters.\nIt was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight linked telescopes.\nProf Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who proposed the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87.\n\"What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System,\" he said.\n\"It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exists. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe.\"\nM87: The significance of the first ever image of a black hole\nThe image shows an intensely bright \"ring of fire\", as Prof Falcke describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by superheated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined - which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth.\nThe edge of the dark circle at the centre is the point at which the gas enters the black hole, which is an object that has such a large gravitational pull, not even light can escape.\nThe woman behind the black hole photo\nTaking the temperature of black holes\nHawking: Black holes store information\nGet BBC news in your inbox, each weekday morning\nDR JEAN LORRE\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY\nAstronomers have suspected that the M87 galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart from false colour images such as this one. The dark centre is not a black hole but indicates that stars are densely packed and fast moving\nThe image matches what theoretical physicists and indeed, Hollywood directors, imagined black holes would look like, according to Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London - who is part of the EHT collaboration.\n\"Although they are relatively simple objects, black holes raise some of the most complex questions about the nature of space and time, and ultimately of our existence,\" he said.\n\"It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we obtain from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again.\"\nBut having the first image will enable researchers to learn more about these mysterious objects. They will be keen to look out for ways in which the black hole departs from what's expected in physics. No-one really knows how the bright ring around the hole is created. Even more intriguing is the question of what happens when an object falls into a black hole.\nWhat is a black hole?\nA black hole is a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape\nDespite the name, they are not empty but instead consist of a huge amount of matter packed densely into a small area, giving it an immense gravitational pull\nThere is a region of space beyond the black hole called the event horizon. This is a \"point of no return\", beyond which it is impossible to escape the gravitational effects of the black hole\nProf Falcke had the idea for the project when he was a PhD student in 1993. At the time, no-one thought it was possible. But he was the first to realise that a certain type of radio emission would be generated close to and all around the black hole, which would be powerful enough to be detected by telescopes on Earth.\nHe also recalled reading a scientific paper from 1973 that suggested that because of their enormous gravity, black holes appear 2.5 times larger than they actually are.\nThese two factors suddenly made the seemingly impossible, possible. After arguing his case for 20 years, Prof Falcke persuaded the\nEuropean Research Council\nto fund the project. The National Science Foundation and agencies in East Asia then joined in to bankroll the project to the tune of more than £40m.\nThe eventual EHT array will have 12 widely spaced participating radio facilities\nIt is an investment that has been vindicated with the publication of the image. Prof Falcke told me that he felt that \"it's mission accomplished\".\nHe said: \"It has been a long journey, but this is what I wanted to see with my own eyes. I wanted to know is this real?\"\nNo single telescope is powerful enough to image the black hole. So, in the biggest experiment of its kind, Prof Sheperd Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics led a project to set up a network of eight linked telescopes. Together, they form the Event Horizon Telescope and can be thought of as a planet-sized array of dishes.\nKatie Bouman\nKatie Bouman is the MIT student who developed the algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible.\nJason Gallicchio\nEach is located high up at a variety of exotic sites, including on volcanoes in Hawaii and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and in Antarctica.\nA team of 200 scientists pointed the networked telescopes towards M87 and scanned its heart over a period of 10 days.\nThe information they gathered was too much to be sent across the internet. Instead, the data was stored on hundreds of hard drives that were flown to central processing centres in Boston, US, and Bonn, Germany, to assemble the information. Katie Bouman a PhD student at MIT  developed an algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible. Prof Doeleman described the achievement as \"an extraordinary scientific feat\".\n\"We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago,\" he said.\n\"Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories, and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes.\"\nThe team is also imaging the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.\nOdd though it may sound, that is harder than getting an image from a distant galaxy 55 million light-years away. This is because, for some unknown reason, the \"ring of fire\" around the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is smaller and dimmer.","attrs_markdown":"[Skip to content](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-47873592#main-content)\n\n[Register](https:\/\/session.bbc.com\/session?action=register&userOrigin=BBCS_BBC&ptrt=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fscience-environment-47873592)\n\n[Sign In](https:\/\/session.bbc.com\/session?userOrigin=BBCS_BBC&ptrt=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fscience-environment-47873592)\n\n- [Home](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/)\n- [News](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news)\n- [Sport](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport)\n- [Business](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/business)\n- [Technology](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/technology)\n- [Health](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/health)\n- [Culture](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture)\n- [Arts](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/arts)\n- [Travel](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel)\n- [Earth](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future-planet)\n- [Audio](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/audio)\n- [Video](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/video)\n- [Live](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/live)\n\n- [Home](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/home)\n- [News](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news)\n  - [US & Canada](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/us-canada)\n  - [UK](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk)\n    - [UK Politics](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/politics)\n    - [England](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/england)\n    - [N. Ireland](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/northern_ireland)\n      - [N. Ireland Politics](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/northern_ireland\/northern_ireland_politics)\n    - [Scotland](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/scotland)\n      - [Scotland Politics](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/scotland\/scotland_politics)\n    - [Wales](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/wales)\n      - [Wales Politics](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/wales\/wales_politics)\n  - [Africa](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world\/africa)\n  - [Asia](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world\/asia)\n    - [China](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world\/asia\/china)\n    - [India](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world\/asia\/india)\n  - [Australia](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world\/australia)\n  - [Europe](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world\/europe)\n  - [Latin America](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world\/latin_america)\n  - [Middle East](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world\/middle_east)\n  - [In Pictures](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/in_pictures)\n  - [BBC InDepth](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/bbcindepth)\n  - [BBC Verify](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/bbcverify)\n- [Sport](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport)\n- [Business](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/business)\n  - [World of Business](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/business\/world-of-business)\n  - [Technology of Business](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/business\/technology-of-business)\n  - [NYSE Opening Bell](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/business\/opening-bell)\n- [Technology](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/technology)\n  - [Artificial Intelligence](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/technology\/artificial-intelligence)\n  - [AI v the Mind](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/technology\/ai-v-the-mind)\n- [Health](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/health)\n- [Culture](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture)\n  - [Film & TV](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture\/film-tv)\n  - [Music](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture\/music)\n  - [Art & Design](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture\/art)\n  - [Style](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture\/style)\n  - [Books](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture\/books)\n  - [Entertainment News](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture\/entertainment-news)\n- [Arts](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/arts)\n  - [Arts in Motion](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/arts\/arts-in-motion)\n- [Travel](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel)\n  - [Destinations](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations)\n    - [Africa](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/africa)\n    - [Antarctica](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/antarctica)\n    - [Asia](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/asia)\n    - [Australia and Pacific](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/australia-and-pacific)\n    - [Caribbean & Bermuda](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/caribbean)\n    - [Central America](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/central-america)\n    - [Europe](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/europe)\n    - [Middle East](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/middle-east)\n    - [North America](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/north-america)\n    - [South America](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/destinations\/south-america)\n  - [World’s Table](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/worlds-table)\n  - [Culture & Experiences](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/cultural-experiences)\n  - [Adventures](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/adventures)\n  - [The SpeciaList](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/specialist)\n- [Earth](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future-planet)\n  - [Science](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/innovation\/science)\n  - [Natural Wonders](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future-planet\/natural-wonders)\n  - [Climate Solutions](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future-planet\/solutions)\n  - [Sustainable Business](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future-planet\/sustainable-business)\n  - [Green Living](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future-planet\/green-living)\n- [Audio](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/audio)\n  - [Podcast Categories](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/audio\/categories)\n  - [Radio](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/audio\/stations)\n  - [Audio FAQs](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/undefined)\n- [Video](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/video)\n  - [BBC Maestro](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/video\/bbc-maestro)\n  - [Discover the World](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/video\/discover-the-world)\n- [Live](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/live)\n  - [Live News](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/live\/news)\n  - [Live Sport](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/live\/sport)\n\n[Home](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/)\n\nNews\n\n[Sport](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport)\n\nBusiness\n\nTechnology\n\n[Health](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/health)\n\nCulture\n\nArts\n\nTravel\n\nEarth\n\nAudio\n\nVideo\n\nLive\n\n[Weather](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/weather)\n\n[Newsletters](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/newsletters)\n\n# First ever black hole image released\n10 April 2019\n\nShare\n\nSave\n\nPallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News\n\nShare\n\nSave\n\n![EHT Black hole](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/F8C9\/production\/_106398636_mediaitem106398635.jpg.webp)EHT\n\nThe first ever picture of a black hole: It's surrounded by a halo of bright gas\n\n**Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy.**\n\nIt measures 40 billion km across - three million times the size of the Earth - and has been described by scientists as \"a monster\".\n\nThe black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world.\n\nDetails have been published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters.\n\nIt was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight linked telescopes.\n\nProf Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who proposed the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87.\n\n\"What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System,\" he said.\n\n\"It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exists. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe.\"\n\nM87: The significance of the first ever image of a black hole\n\nThe image shows an intensely bright \"ring of fire\", as Prof Falcke describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by superheated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined - which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth.\n\nThe edge of the dark circle at the centre is the point at which the gas enters the black hole, which is an object that has such a large gravitational pull, not even light can escape.\n\n- [The woman behind the black hole photo](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-47891902)\n- [Taking the temperature of black holes](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-scotland-47773553)\n- [Hawking: Black holes store information](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-34062839)\n- [Get BBC news in your inbox, each weekday morning](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/articles\/4g8c0mkNmM190Zl00VdXTTb\/bbc-news-daily-email)\n\n![DR JEAN LORRE\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY M87](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/49ED\/production\/_106352981_optical_photo_of_galaxy_m87_showing_jet-spl.jpg.webp)DR JEAN LORRE\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY\n\nAstronomers have suspected that the M87 galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart from false colour images such as this one. The dark centre is not a black hole but indicates that stars are densely packed and fast moving\n\nThe image matches what theoretical physicists and indeed, Hollywood directors, imagined black holes would look like, according to Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London - who is part of the EHT collaboration.\n\n\"Although they are relatively simple objects, black holes raise some of the most complex questions about the nature of space and time, and ultimately of our existence,\" he said.\n\n\"It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we obtain from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again.\"\n\nBut having the first image will enable researchers to learn more about these mysterious objects. They will be keen to look out for ways in which the black hole departs from what's expected in physics. No-one really knows how the bright ring around the hole is created. Even more intriguing is the question of what happens when an object falls into a black hole.\n\n![Presentational grey line](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)\n\n## What is a black hole?\n- A black hole is a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape\n- Despite the name, they are not empty but instead consist of a huge amount of matter packed densely into a small area, giving it an immense gravitational pull\n- There is a region of space beyond the black hole called the event horizon. This is a \"point of no return\", beyond which it is impossible to escape the gravitational effects of the black hole\n\n![Presentational grey line](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)\n\nProf Falcke had the idea for the project when he was a PhD student in 1993. At the time, no-one thought it was possible. But he was the first to realise that a certain type of radio emission would be generated close to and all around the black hole, which would be powerful enough to be detected by telescopes on Earth.\n\nHe also recalled reading a scientific paper from 1973 that suggested that because of their enormous gravity, black holes appear 2.5 times larger than they actually are.\n\nThese two factors suddenly made the seemingly impossible, possible. After arguing his case for 20 years, Prof Falcke persuaded the [European Research Council](https:\/\/blackholecam.org\/) to fund the project. The National Science Foundation and agencies in East Asia then joined in to bankroll the project to the tune of more than £40m.\n\n![EHT array](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)\n\nThe eventual EHT array will have 12 widely spaced participating radio facilities\n\nIt is an investment that has been vindicated with the publication of the image. Prof Falcke told me that he felt that \"it's mission accomplished\".\n\nHe said: \"It has been a long journey, but this is what I wanted to see with my own eyes. I wanted to know is this real?\"\n\nNo single telescope is powerful enough to image the black hole. So, in the biggest experiment of its kind, Prof Sheperd Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics led a project to set up a network of eight linked telescopes. Together, they form the Event Horizon Telescope and can be thought of as a planet-sized array of dishes.\n\n![Katie Bouman Drives](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)Katie Bouman\n\nKatie Bouman is the MIT student who developed the algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible.\n\n![Jason Gallicchio South Pole Telescope](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)Jason Gallicchio\n\nEach is located high up at a variety of exotic sites, including on volcanoes in Hawaii and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and in Antarctica.\n\nA team of 200 scientists pointed the networked telescopes towards M87 and scanned its heart over a period of 10 days.\n\nThe information they gathered was too much to be sent across the internet. Instead, the data was stored on hundreds of hard drives that were flown to central processing centres in Boston, US, and Bonn, Germany, to assemble the information. Katie Bouman a PhD student at MIT developed an algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible. Prof Doeleman described the achievement as \"an extraordinary scientific feat\".\n\n\"We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago,\" he said.\n\n\"Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories, and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes.\"\n\nThe team is also imaging the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.\n\nOdd though it may sound, that is harder than getting an image from a distant galaxy 55 million light-years away. This is because, for some unknown reason, the \"ring of fire\" around the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is smaller and dimmer.\n\nFollow Pallab [on Twitter](http:\/\/twitter.com\/bbcpallab)\n\n[How to see a Black Hole: The Universe's Greatest Mystery](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/m00042l4) *can be seen the UK at 21:00 on BBC Four on Wednesday 10 April.*\n***\n- [Home](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/)\n- [News](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news)\n- [Sport](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport)\n- [Business](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/business)\n- [Technology](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/technology)\n- [Health](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/health)\n- [Culture](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture)\n- [Arts](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/arts)\n- [Travel](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel)\n- [Earth](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future-planet)\n- [Audio](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/audio)\n- [Video](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/video)\n- [Live](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/live)\n- [Weather](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/weather)\n- [BBC Shop](https:\/\/shop.bbc.com\/)\n- [BritBox](https:\/\/www.britbox.com\/?utm_source=bbc.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=footer)\n\nBBC in other languages\n\n### The BBC is in multiple languages\n#### Read the BBC In your own language\n[Oduu Afaan Oromootiin](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/afaanoromoo)\n\n[Amharic ዜና በአማርኛ](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/amharic)\n\n[Arabic عربي](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/arabic)\n\n[Azeri AZƏRBAYCAN](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/azeri)\n\n[Bangla বাংলা](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bengali)\n\n[Burmese မြန်မာ](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/burmese)\n\n[Chinese 中文网](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/zhongwen\/simp)\n\n[Dari دری](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/dari)\n\n[French AFRIQUE](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/afrique)\n\n[Hausa HAUSA](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/hausa)\n\n[Hindi हिन्दी](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/hindi)\n\n[Gaelic NAIDHEACHDAN](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/naidheachdan)\n\n[Gujarati ગુજરાતીમાં સમાચાર](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/gujarati)\n\n[Igbo AKỤKỌ N’IGBO](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/igbo)\n\n[Indonesian INDONESIA](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/indonesia)\n\n[Japanese 日本語](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/japanese)\n\n[Kinyarwanda GAHUZA](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/gahuza)\n\n[Kirundi KIRUNDI](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/gahuza)\n\n[Korean 한국어](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/korean)\n\n[Kyrgyz Кыргыз](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/kyrgyz)\n\n[Marathi मराठी](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/marathi)\n\n[Nepali नेपाली](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/nepali)\n\n[Noticias para hispanoparlantes](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/mundo)\n\n[Pashto پښتو](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/pashto)\n\n[Persian فارسی](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/persian)\n\n[Pidgin](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/pidgin)\n\n[Polish PO POLSKU](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/polska)\n\n[Portuguese BRASIL](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/portuguese)\n\n[Punjabi ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਖ਼ਬਰਾਂ](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/punjabi)\n\n[Russian НА РУССКОМ](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/russian)\n\n[Serbian NA SRPSKOM](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/serbian\/lat)\n\n[Sinhala සිංහල](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sinhala)\n\n[Somali SOMALI](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/somali)\n\n[Swahili HABARI KWA KISWAHILI](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/swahili)\n\n[Tamil தமிழில் செய்திகள்](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/tamil)\n\n[Telugu తెలుగు వార్తలు](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/telugu)\n\n[Thai ข่าวภาษาไทย](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/thai)\n\n[Tigrinya ዜና ብትግርኛ](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/tigrinya)\n\n[Turkish TÜRKÇE](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/turkce)\n\n[Ukrainian УКРАЇНСЬКA](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/ukrainian)\n\n[Urdu اردو](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/urdu)\n\n[Uzbek O'ZBEK](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/uzbek)\n\n[Vietnamese TIẾNG VIỆT](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/vietnamese)\n\n[Welsh NEWYDDION](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/cymrufyw)\n\n[Yoruba ÌRÒYÌN NÍ YORÙBÁ](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/yoruba)\n\nFollow BBC on:\n\n- [Terms of Use](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/pages\/terms-of-use)\n- [Subscription Terms](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/pages\/subscription-terms)\n- [About the BBC](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/aboutthebbc)\n- [Privacy Policy](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/pages\/privacy-policy)\n- [Cookies](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/usingthebbc\/cookies\/)\n- [Accessibility Help](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/accessibility\/)\n- [Contact the BBC](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/contact)\n- [Advertise with us](https:\/\/advertising.bbcstudios.com\/)\n- [Do not share or sell my info](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/usingthebbc\/cookies\/how-can-i-change-my-bbc-cookie-settings\/)\n- [BBC.com Help & FAQs](https:\/\/help.bbc.com\/hc\/)\n- [Content Index](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/pages\/content-index)\n- [Set Preferred Source](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/article\/20260128-how-to-make-google-put-trusted-sources-up-top-when-you-search)\n\nCopyright 2026 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. [**Read about our approach to external linking.**](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/editorialguidelines\/guidance\/feeds-and-links)","attrs_readable_markdown":"10 April 2019\n\nPallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News\n\n![EHT Black hole](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/F8C9\/production\/_106398636_mediaitem106398635.jpg.webp)EHT\n\nThe first ever picture of a black hole: It's surrounded by a halo of bright gas\n\n**Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy.**\n\nIt measures 40 billion km across - three million times the size of the Earth - and has been described by scientists as \"a monster\".\n\nThe black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world.\n\nDetails have been published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters.\n\nIt was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight linked telescopes.\n\nProf Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who proposed the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87.\n\n\"What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System,\" he said.\n\n\"It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exists. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe.\"\n\nM87: The significance of the first ever image of a black hole\n\nThe image shows an intensely bright \"ring of fire\", as Prof Falcke describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by superheated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined - which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth.\n\nThe edge of the dark circle at the centre is the point at which the gas enters the black hole, which is an object that has such a large gravitational pull, not even light can escape.\n\n- [The woman behind the black hole photo](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-47891902)\n- [Taking the temperature of black holes](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-scotland-47773553)\n- [Hawking: Black holes store information](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-34062839)\n- [Get BBC news in your inbox, each weekday morning](https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/articles\/4g8c0mkNmM190Zl00VdXTTb\/bbc-news-daily-email)\n\n![DR JEAN LORRE\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY M87](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/49ED\/production\/_106352981_optical_photo_of_galaxy_m87_showing_jet-spl.jpg.webp)DR JEAN LORRE\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY\n\nAstronomers have suspected that the M87 galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart from false colour images such as this one. The dark centre is not a black hole but indicates that stars are densely packed and fast moving\n\nThe image matches what theoretical physicists and indeed, Hollywood directors, imagined black holes would look like, according to Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London - who is part of the EHT collaboration.\n\n\"Although they are relatively simple objects, black holes raise some of the most complex questions about the nature of space and time, and ultimately of our existence,\" he said.\n\n\"It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we obtain from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again.\"\n\nBut having the first image will enable researchers to learn more about these mysterious objects. They will be keen to look out for ways in which the black hole departs from what's expected in physics. No-one really knows how the bright ring around the hole is created. Even more intriguing is the question of what happens when an object falls into a black hole.\n\n![Presentational grey line](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)\n\nWhat is a black hole?\n\n- A black hole is a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape\n- Despite the name, they are not empty but instead consist of a huge amount of matter packed densely into a small area, giving it an immense gravitational pull\n- There is a region of space beyond the black hole called the event horizon. This is a \"point of no return\", beyond which it is impossible to escape the gravitational effects of the black hole\n\n![Presentational grey line](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)\n\nProf Falcke had the idea for the project when he was a PhD student in 1993. At the time, no-one thought it was possible. But he was the first to realise that a certain type of radio emission would be generated close to and all around the black hole, which would be powerful enough to be detected by telescopes on Earth.\n\nHe also recalled reading a scientific paper from 1973 that suggested that because of their enormous gravity, black holes appear 2.5 times larger than they actually are.\n\nThese two factors suddenly made the seemingly impossible, possible. After arguing his case for 20 years, Prof Falcke persuaded the [European Research Council](https:\/\/blackholecam.org\/) to fund the project. The National Science Foundation and agencies in East Asia then joined in to bankroll the project to the tune of more than £40m.\n\n![EHT array](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)\n\nThe eventual EHT array will have 12 widely spaced participating radio facilities\n\nIt is an investment that has been vindicated with the publication of the image. Prof Falcke told me that he felt that \"it's mission accomplished\".\n\nHe said: \"It has been a long journey, but this is what I wanted to see with my own eyes. I wanted to know is this real?\"\n\nNo single telescope is powerful enough to image the black hole. So, in the biggest experiment of its kind, Prof Sheperd Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics led a project to set up a network of eight linked telescopes. Together, they form the Event Horizon Telescope and can be thought of as a planet-sized array of dishes.\n\n![Katie Bouman Drives](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)Katie Bouman\n\nKatie Bouman is the MIT student who developed the algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible.\n\n![Jason Gallicchio South Pole Telescope](https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/1024x1024\/p0hq72jn.png.webp)Jason Gallicchio\n\nEach is located high up at a variety of exotic sites, including on volcanoes in Hawaii and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and in Antarctica.\n\nA team of 200 scientists pointed the networked telescopes towards M87 and scanned its heart over a period of 10 days.\n\nThe information they gathered was too much to be sent across the internet. Instead, the data was stored on hundreds of hard drives that were flown to central processing centres in Boston, US, and Bonn, Germany, to assemble the information. Katie Bouman a PhD student at MIT developed an algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible. Prof Doeleman described the achievement as \"an extraordinary scientific feat\".\n\n\"We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago,\" he said.\n\n\"Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories, and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes.\"\n\nThe team is also imaging the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.\n\nOdd though it may sound, that is harder than getting an image from a distant galaxy 55 million light-years away. This is because, for some unknown reason, the \"ring of fire\" around the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is smaller and dimmer.","meta_canonical":null}

3. Robots.txt Check

Query:

Response:

4. Spam/Ban Check

Query:

Response:

5. Seen Status Check

ℹ️ Skipped - page is already crawled

📄

INDEXABLE

✅

CRAWLED

17 days ago

🚫

ROBOTS BLOCKED

Page Info Filters

Filter	Status	Condition	Details
HTTP status	PASS	`download_http_code = 200`	HTTP 200
Age cutoff	PASS	`download_stamp > now() - 6 MONTH`	0.6 months ago
History drop	PASS	`isNull(history_drop_reason)`	No drop reason
Spam/ban	PASS	`fh_dont_index != 1 AND ml_spam_score = 0`	ml_spam_score=0
Canonical	PASS	`meta_canonical IS NULL OR = '' OR = src_unparsed`	Not set

Page Details

Property	Value
URL	https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47873592
Last Crawled	2026-03-21 15:55:30 (17 days ago)
First Indexed	2019-04-10 13:17:05 (6 years ago)
HTTP Status Code	200
Meta Title	First ever black hole image released
Meta Description	The "monster" black hole is three million times the size of Earth.
Meta Canonical	null
Boilerpipe Text	10 April 2019 Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News EHT The first ever picture of a black hole: It's surrounded by a halo of bright gas Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy. It measures 40 billion km across - three million times the size of the Earth - and has been described by scientists as "a monster". The black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world. Details have been published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters. It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight linked telescopes. Prof Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who proposed the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87. "What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System," he said. "It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exists. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe." M87: The significance of the first ever image of a black hole The image shows an intensely bright "ring of fire", as Prof Falcke describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by superheated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined - which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth. The edge of the dark circle at the centre is the point at which the gas enters the black hole, which is an object that has such a large gravitational pull, not even light can escape. The woman behind the black hole photo Taking the temperature of black holes Hawking: Black holes store information Get BBC news in your inbox, each weekday morning DR JEAN LORRE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Astronomers have suspected that the M87 galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart from false colour images such as this one. The dark centre is not a black hole but indicates that stars are densely packed and fast moving The image matches what theoretical physicists and indeed, Hollywood directors, imagined black holes would look like, according to Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London - who is part of the EHT collaboration. "Although they are relatively simple objects, black holes raise some of the most complex questions about the nature of space and time, and ultimately of our existence," he said. "It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we obtain from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again." But having the first image will enable researchers to learn more about these mysterious objects. They will be keen to look out for ways in which the black hole departs from what's expected in physics. No-one really knows how the bright ring around the hole is created. Even more intriguing is the question of what happens when an object falls into a black hole. What is a black hole? A black hole is a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape Despite the name, they are not empty but instead consist of a huge amount of matter packed densely into a small area, giving it an immense gravitational pull There is a region of space beyond the black hole called the event horizon. This is a "point of no return", beyond which it is impossible to escape the gravitational effects of the black hole Prof Falcke had the idea for the project when he was a PhD student in 1993. At the time, no-one thought it was possible. But he was the first to realise that a certain type of radio emission would be generated close to and all around the black hole, which would be powerful enough to be detected by telescopes on Earth. He also recalled reading a scientific paper from 1973 that suggested that because of their enormous gravity, black holes appear 2.5 times larger than they actually are. These two factors suddenly made the seemingly impossible, possible. After arguing his case for 20 years, Prof Falcke persuaded the European Research Council to fund the project. The National Science Foundation and agencies in East Asia then joined in to bankroll the project to the tune of more than £40m. The eventual EHT array will have 12 widely spaced participating radio facilities It is an investment that has been vindicated with the publication of the image. Prof Falcke told me that he felt that "it's mission accomplished". He said: "It has been a long journey, but this is what I wanted to see with my own eyes. I wanted to know is this real?" No single telescope is powerful enough to image the black hole. So, in the biggest experiment of its kind, Prof Sheperd Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics led a project to set up a network of eight linked telescopes. Together, they form the Event Horizon Telescope and can be thought of as a planet-sized array of dishes. Katie Bouman Katie Bouman is the MIT student who developed the algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible. Jason Gallicchio Each is located high up at a variety of exotic sites, including on volcanoes in Hawaii and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and in Antarctica. A team of 200 scientists pointed the networked telescopes towards M87 and scanned its heart over a period of 10 days. The information they gathered was too much to be sent across the internet. Instead, the data was stored on hundreds of hard drives that were flown to central processing centres in Boston, US, and Bonn, Germany, to assemble the information. Katie Bouman a PhD student at MIT developed an algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible. Prof Doeleman described the achievement as "an extraordinary scientific feat". "We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago," he said. "Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories, and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes." The team is also imaging the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Odd though it may sound, that is harder than getting an image from a distant galaxy 55 million light-years away. This is because, for some unknown reason, the "ring of fire" around the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is smaller and dimmer.
Markdown	[Skip to content](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47873592#main-content) [Register](https://session.bbc.com/session?action=register&userOrigin=BBCS_BBC&ptrt=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fscience-environment-47873592) [Sign In](https://session.bbc.com/session?userOrigin=BBCS_BBC&ptrt=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fscience-environment-47873592) - [Home](https://www.bbc.com/) - [News](https://www.bbc.com/news) - [Sport](https://www.bbc.com/sport) - [Business](https://www.bbc.com/business) - [Technology](https://www.bbc.com/technology) - [Health](https://www.bbc.com/health) - [Culture](https://www.bbc.com/culture) - [Arts](https://www.bbc.com/arts) - [Travel](https://www.bbc.com/travel) - [Earth](https://www.bbc.com/future-planet) - [Audio](https://www.bbc.com/audio) - [Video](https://www.bbc.com/video) - [Live](https://www.bbc.com/live) - [Home](https://www.bbc.com/home) - [News](https://www.bbc.com/news) - [US & Canada](https://www.bbc.com/news/us-canada) - [UK](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk) - [UK Politics](https://www.bbc.com/news/politics) - [England](https://www.bbc.com/news/england) - [N. Ireland](https://www.bbc.com/news/northern_ireland) - [N. Ireland Politics](https://www.bbc.com/news/northern_ireland/northern_ireland_politics) - [Scotland](https://www.bbc.com/news/scotland) - [Scotland Politics](https://www.bbc.com/news/scotland/scotland_politics) - [Wales](https://www.bbc.com/news/wales) - [Wales Politics](https://www.bbc.com/news/wales/wales_politics) - [Africa](https://www.bbc.com/news/world/africa) - [Asia](https://www.bbc.com/news/world/asia) - [China](https://www.bbc.com/news/world/asia/china) - [India](https://www.bbc.com/news/world/asia/india) - [Australia](https://www.bbc.com/news/world/australia) - [Europe](https://www.bbc.com/news/world/europe) - [Latin America](https://www.bbc.com/news/world/latin_america) - [Middle East](https://www.bbc.com/news/world/middle_east) - [In Pictures](https://www.bbc.com/news/in_pictures) - [BBC InDepth](https://www.bbc.com/news/bbcindepth) - [BBC Verify](https://www.bbc.com/news/bbcverify) - [Sport](https://www.bbc.com/sport) - [Business](https://www.bbc.com/business) - [World of Business](https://www.bbc.com/business/world-of-business) - [Technology of Business](https://www.bbc.com/business/technology-of-business) - [NYSE Opening Bell](https://www.bbc.com/business/opening-bell) - [Technology](https://www.bbc.com/technology) - [Artificial Intelligence](https://www.bbc.com/technology/artificial-intelligence) - [AI v the Mind](https://www.bbc.com/technology/ai-v-the-mind) - [Health](https://www.bbc.com/health) - [Culture](https://www.bbc.com/culture) - [Film & TV](https://www.bbc.com/culture/film-tv) - [Music](https://www.bbc.com/culture/music) - [Art & Design](https://www.bbc.com/culture/art) - [Style](https://www.bbc.com/culture/style) - [Books](https://www.bbc.com/culture/books) - [Entertainment News](https://www.bbc.com/culture/entertainment-news) - [Arts](https://www.bbc.com/arts) - [Arts in Motion](https://www.bbc.com/arts/arts-in-motion) - [Travel](https://www.bbc.com/travel) - [Destinations](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations) - [Africa](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/africa) - [Antarctica](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/antarctica) - [Asia](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/asia) - [Australia and Pacific](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/australia-and-pacific) - [Caribbean & Bermuda](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/caribbean) - [Central America](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/central-america) - [Europe](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/europe) - [Middle East](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/middle-east) - [North America](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/north-america) - [South America](https://www.bbc.com/travel/destinations/south-america) - [World’s Table](https://www.bbc.com/travel/worlds-table) - [Culture & Experiences](https://www.bbc.com/travel/cultural-experiences) - [Adventures](https://www.bbc.com/travel/adventures) - [The SpeciaList](https://www.bbc.com/travel/specialist) - [Earth](https://www.bbc.com/future-planet) - [Science](https://www.bbc.com/innovation/science) - [Natural Wonders](https://www.bbc.com/future-planet/natural-wonders) - [Climate Solutions](https://www.bbc.com/future-planet/solutions) - [Sustainable Business](https://www.bbc.com/future-planet/sustainable-business) - [Green Living](https://www.bbc.com/future-planet/green-living) - [Audio](https://www.bbc.com/audio) - [Podcast Categories](https://www.bbc.com/audio/categories) - [Radio](https://www.bbc.com/audio/stations) - [Audio FAQs](https://www.bbc.com/undefined) - [Video](https://www.bbc.com/video) - [BBC Maestro](https://www.bbc.com/video/bbc-maestro) - [Discover the World](https://www.bbc.com/video/discover-the-world) - [Live](https://www.bbc.com/live) - [Live News](https://www.bbc.com/live/news) - [Live Sport](https://www.bbc.com/live/sport) [Home](https://www.bbc.com/) News [Sport](https://www.bbc.com/sport) Business Technology [Health](https://www.bbc.com/health) Culture Arts Travel Earth Audio Video Live [Weather](https://www.bbc.com/weather) [Newsletters](https://www.bbc.com/newsletters) # First ever black hole image released 10 April 2019 Share Save Pallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News Share Save ![EHT Black hole](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/F8C9/production/_106398636_mediaitem106398635.jpg.webp)EHT The first ever picture of a black hole: It's surrounded by a halo of bright gas Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy. It measures 40 billion km across - three million times the size of the Earth - and has been described by scientists as "a monster". The black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world. Details have been published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters. It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight linked telescopes. Prof Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who proposed the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87. "What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System," he said. "It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exists. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe." M87: The significance of the first ever image of a black hole The image shows an intensely bright "ring of fire", as Prof Falcke describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by superheated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined - which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth. The edge of the dark circle at the centre is the point at which the gas enters the black hole, which is an object that has such a large gravitational pull, not even light can escape. - [The woman behind the black hole photo](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47891902) - [Taking the temperature of black holes](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47773553) - [Hawking: Black holes store information](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34062839) - [Get BBC news in your inbox, each weekday morning](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4g8c0mkNmM190Zl00VdXTTb/bbc-news-daily-email) ![DR JEAN LORRE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY M87](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/49ED/production/_106352981_optical_photo_of_galaxy_m87_showing_jet-spl.jpg.webp)DR JEAN LORRE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Astronomers have suspected that the M87 galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart from false colour images such as this one. The dark centre is not a black hole but indicates that stars are densely packed and fast moving The image matches what theoretical physicists and indeed, Hollywood directors, imagined black holes would look like, according to Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London - who is part of the EHT collaboration. "Although they are relatively simple objects, black holes raise some of the most complex questions about the nature of space and time, and ultimately of our existence," he said. "It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we obtain from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again." But having the first image will enable researchers to learn more about these mysterious objects. They will be keen to look out for ways in which the black hole departs from what's expected in physics. No-one really knows how the bright ring around the hole is created. Even more intriguing is the question of what happens when an object falls into a black hole. ![Presentational grey line](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp) ## What is a black hole? - A black hole is a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape - Despite the name, they are not empty but instead consist of a huge amount of matter packed densely into a small area, giving it an immense gravitational pull - There is a region of space beyond the black hole called the event horizon. This is a "point of no return", beyond which it is impossible to escape the gravitational effects of the black hole ![Presentational grey line](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp) Prof Falcke had the idea for the project when he was a PhD student in 1993. At the time, no-one thought it was possible. But he was the first to realise that a certain type of radio emission would be generated close to and all around the black hole, which would be powerful enough to be detected by telescopes on Earth. He also recalled reading a scientific paper from 1973 that suggested that because of their enormous gravity, black holes appear 2.5 times larger than they actually are. These two factors suddenly made the seemingly impossible, possible. After arguing his case for 20 years, Prof Falcke persuaded the [European Research Council](https://blackholecam.org/) to fund the project. The National Science Foundation and agencies in East Asia then joined in to bankroll the project to the tune of more than £40m. ![EHT array](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp) The eventual EHT array will have 12 widely spaced participating radio facilities It is an investment that has been vindicated with the publication of the image. Prof Falcke told me that he felt that "it's mission accomplished". He said: "It has been a long journey, but this is what I wanted to see with my own eyes. I wanted to know is this real?" No single telescope is powerful enough to image the black hole. So, in the biggest experiment of its kind, Prof Sheperd Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics led a project to set up a network of eight linked telescopes. Together, they form the Event Horizon Telescope and can be thought of as a planet-sized array of dishes. ![Katie Bouman Drives](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp)Katie Bouman Katie Bouman is the MIT student who developed the algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible. ![Jason Gallicchio South Pole Telescope](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp)Jason Gallicchio Each is located high up at a variety of exotic sites, including on volcanoes in Hawaii and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and in Antarctica. A team of 200 scientists pointed the networked telescopes towards M87 and scanned its heart over a period of 10 days. The information they gathered was too much to be sent across the internet. Instead, the data was stored on hundreds of hard drives that were flown to central processing centres in Boston, US, and Bonn, Germany, to assemble the information. Katie Bouman a PhD student at MIT developed an algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible. Prof Doeleman described the achievement as "an extraordinary scientific feat". "We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago," he said. "Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories, and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes." The team is also imaging the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Odd though it may sound, that is harder than getting an image from a distant galaxy 55 million light-years away. This is because, for some unknown reason, the "ring of fire" around the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is smaller and dimmer. Follow Pallab [on Twitter](http://twitter.com/bbcpallab) [How to see a Black Hole: The Universe's Greatest Mystery](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00042l4) can be seen the UK at 21:00 on BBC Four on Wednesday 10 April. * - [Home](https://www.bbc.com/) - [News](https://www.bbc.com/news) - [Sport](https://www.bbc.com/sport) - [Business](https://www.bbc.com/business) - [Technology](https://www.bbc.com/technology) - [Health](https://www.bbc.com/health) - [Culture](https://www.bbc.com/culture) - [Arts](https://www.bbc.com/arts) - [Travel](https://www.bbc.com/travel) - [Earth](https://www.bbc.com/future-planet) - [Audio](https://www.bbc.com/audio) - [Video](https://www.bbc.com/video) - [Live](https://www.bbc.com/live) - [Weather](https://www.bbc.com/weather) - [BBC Shop](https://shop.bbc.com/) - [BritBox](https://www.britbox.com/?utm_source=bbc.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=footer) BBC in other languages ### The BBC is in multiple languages #### Read the BBC In your own language [Oduu Afaan Oromootiin](https://www.bbc.com/afaanoromoo) [Amharic ዜና በአማርኛ](https://www.bbc.com/amharic) [Arabic عربي](https://www.bbc.com/arabic) [Azeri AZƏRBAYCAN](https://www.bbc.com/azeri) [Bangla বাংলা](https://www.bbc.com/bengali) [Burmese မြန်မာ](https://www.bbc.com/burmese) [Chinese 中文网](https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp) [Dari دری](https://www.bbc.com/dari) [French AFRIQUE](https://www.bbc.com/afrique) [Hausa HAUSA](https://www.bbc.com/hausa) [Hindi हिन्दी](https://www.bbc.com/hindi) [Gaelic NAIDHEACHDAN](https://www.bbc.com/naidheachdan) [Gujarati ગુજરાતીમાં સમાચાર](https://www.bbc.com/gujarati) [Igbo AKỤKỌ N’IGBO](https://www.bbc.com/igbo) [Indonesian INDONESIA](https://www.bbc.com/indonesia) [Japanese 日本語](https://www.bbc.com/japanese) [Kinyarwanda GAHUZA](https://www.bbc.com/gahuza) [Kirundi KIRUNDI](https://www.bbc.com/gahuza) [Korean 한국어](https://www.bbc.com/korean) [Kyrgyz Кыргыз](https://www.bbc.com/kyrgyz) [Marathi मराठी](https://www.bbc.com/marathi) [Nepali नेपाली](https://www.bbc.com/nepali) [Noticias para hispanoparlantes](https://www.bbc.com/mundo) [Pashto پښتو](https://www.bbc.com/pashto) [Persian فارسی](https://www.bbc.com/persian) [Pidgin](https://www.bbc.com/pidgin) [Polish PO POLSKU](https://www.bbc.com/polska) [Portuguese BRASIL](https://www.bbc.com/portuguese) [Punjabi ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਖ਼ਬਰਾਂ](https://www.bbc.com/punjabi) [Russian НА РУССКОМ](https://www.bbc.com/russian) [Serbian NA SRPSKOM](https://www.bbc.com/serbian/lat) [Sinhala සිංහල](https://www.bbc.com/sinhala) [Somali SOMALI](https://www.bbc.com/somali) [Swahili HABARI KWA KISWAHILI](https://www.bbc.com/swahili) [Tamil தமிழில் செய்திகள்](https://www.bbc.com/tamil) [Telugu తెలుగు వార్తలు](https://www.bbc.com/telugu) [Thai ข่าวภาษาไทย](https://www.bbc.com/thai) [Tigrinya ዜና ብትግርኛ](https://www.bbc.com/tigrinya) [Turkish TÜRKÇE](https://www.bbc.com/turkce) [Ukrainian УКРАЇНСЬКA](https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian) [Urdu اردو](https://www.bbc.com/urdu) [Uzbek O'ZBEK](https://www.bbc.com/uzbek) [Vietnamese TIẾNG VIỆT](https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese) [Welsh NEWYDDION](https://www.bbc.com/cymrufyw) [Yoruba ÌRÒYÌN NÍ YORÙBÁ](https://www.bbc.com/yoruba) Follow BBC on: - [Terms of Use](https://www.bbc.com/pages/terms-of-use) - [Subscription Terms](https://www.bbc.com/pages/subscription-terms) - [About the BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc) - [Privacy Policy](https://www.bbc.com/pages/privacy-policy) - [Cookies](https://www.bbc.com/usingthebbc/cookies/) - [Accessibility Help](https://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/) - [Contact the BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact) - [Advertise with us](https://advertising.bbcstudios.com/) - [Do not share or sell my info](https://www.bbc.com/usingthebbc/cookies/how-can-i-change-my-bbc-cookie-settings/) - [BBC.com Help & FAQs](https://help.bbc.com/hc/) - [Content Index](https://www.bbc.com/pages/content-index) - [Set Preferred Source](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260128-how-to-make-google-put-trusted-sources-up-top-when-you-search) Copyright 2026 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. [Read about our approach to external linking.**](https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidance/feeds-and-links)
Readable Markdown	10 April 2019 Pallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News ![EHT Black hole](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/F8C9/production/_106398636_mediaitem106398635.jpg.webp)EHT The first ever picture of a black hole: It's surrounded by a halo of bright gas Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy. It measures 40 billion km across - three million times the size of the Earth - and has been described by scientists as "a monster". The black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world. Details have been published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters. It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight linked telescopes. Prof Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who proposed the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87. "What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System," he said. "It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exists. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe." M87: The significance of the first ever image of a black hole The image shows an intensely bright "ring of fire", as Prof Falcke describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by superheated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined - which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth. The edge of the dark circle at the centre is the point at which the gas enters the black hole, which is an object that has such a large gravitational pull, not even light can escape. - [The woman behind the black hole photo](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47891902) - [Taking the temperature of black holes](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47773553) - [Hawking: Black holes store information](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34062839) - [Get BBC news in your inbox, each weekday morning](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4g8c0mkNmM190Zl00VdXTTb/bbc-news-daily-email) ![DR JEAN LORRE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY M87](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/49ED/production/_106352981_optical_photo_of_galaxy_m87_showing_jet-spl.jpg.webp)DR JEAN LORRE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Astronomers have suspected that the M87 galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart from false colour images such as this one. The dark centre is not a black hole but indicates that stars are densely packed and fast moving The image matches what theoretical physicists and indeed, Hollywood directors, imagined black holes would look like, according to Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London - who is part of the EHT collaboration. "Although they are relatively simple objects, black holes raise some of the most complex questions about the nature of space and time, and ultimately of our existence," he said. "It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we obtain from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again." But having the first image will enable researchers to learn more about these mysterious objects. They will be keen to look out for ways in which the black hole departs from what's expected in physics. No-one really knows how the bright ring around the hole is created. Even more intriguing is the question of what happens when an object falls into a black hole. ![Presentational grey line](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp) What is a black hole? - A black hole is a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape - Despite the name, they are not empty but instead consist of a huge amount of matter packed densely into a small area, giving it an immense gravitational pull - There is a region of space beyond the black hole called the event horizon. This is a "point of no return", beyond which it is impossible to escape the gravitational effects of the black hole ![Presentational grey line](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp) Prof Falcke had the idea for the project when he was a PhD student in 1993. At the time, no-one thought it was possible. But he was the first to realise that a certain type of radio emission would be generated close to and all around the black hole, which would be powerful enough to be detected by telescopes on Earth. He also recalled reading a scientific paper from 1973 that suggested that because of their enormous gravity, black holes appear 2.5 times larger than they actually are. These two factors suddenly made the seemingly impossible, possible. After arguing his case for 20 years, Prof Falcke persuaded the [European Research Council](https://blackholecam.org/) to fund the project. The National Science Foundation and agencies in East Asia then joined in to bankroll the project to the tune of more than £40m. ![EHT array](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp) The eventual EHT array will have 12 widely spaced participating radio facilities It is an investment that has been vindicated with the publication of the image. Prof Falcke told me that he felt that "it's mission accomplished". He said: "It has been a long journey, but this is what I wanted to see with my own eyes. I wanted to know is this real?" No single telescope is powerful enough to image the black hole. So, in the biggest experiment of its kind, Prof Sheperd Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics led a project to set up a network of eight linked telescopes. Together, they form the Event Horizon Telescope and can be thought of as a planet-sized array of dishes. ![Katie Bouman Drives](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp)Katie Bouman Katie Bouman is the MIT student who developed the algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible. ![Jason Gallicchio South Pole Telescope](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x1024/p0hq72jn.png.webp)Jason Gallicchio Each is located high up at a variety of exotic sites, including on volcanoes in Hawaii and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and in Antarctica. A team of 200 scientists pointed the networked telescopes towards M87 and scanned its heart over a period of 10 days. The information they gathered was too much to be sent across the internet. Instead, the data was stored on hundreds of hard drives that were flown to central processing centres in Boston, US, and Bonn, Germany, to assemble the information. Katie Bouman a PhD student at MIT developed an algorithm that pieced together the data from the EHT. Without her contribution the project would not have been possible. Prof Doeleman described the achievement as "an extraordinary scientific feat". "We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago," he said. "Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories, and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes." The team is also imaging the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Odd though it may sound, that is harder than getting an image from a distant galaxy 55 million light-years away. This is because, for some unknown reason, the "ring of fire" around the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is smaller and dimmer.
Shard	16 (laksa)
Root Hash	1643509356818581016
Unparsed URL	com,bbc!www,/news/science-environment-47873592 s443