Patel, N. V. (2019, April 10). How scientists saw the ‘invisible’-and captured the first image of a black hole. Retrieved from https://www.popsci.com/event-horizon-black-hole-image#page-3

This article, written by Neel V. Patel, talks about the the first image ever developed of the black hole named M87. It explains that the circle of light in the image is a visual outline of the actual black hole, since capturing an image of the black hole would be impossible since it pulls away light itself. They are continuing the attempt at capturing an image of the black hole that is at the center of our own galaxy. It further explained that the reason why we know of black hole’s existence despite being able to see one, is when stars or planets orbit around something that light cannot capture and seems invisible, this conveys that it is slowly being pulled into something in circular motion. The black hole’s image matched the expectations and models that represented it years before, and it also gave them new information. We now know that M87 black hole rotates clockwise based on the data from the telescope. By learning the capabilities of the EHT (Event Horizon Telescope) with M87 astronomers are now expecting to make further discoveries far into space, and it also marks a significant advancement in technology, and they are already planning on more ways to improve it by increasing the number of telescopes from 7 to 11 by the year 2020.

Many interesting details were included in this article. It stated that the reason why they were unable to get an image of a black hole before is because it is so small and so far away, one of the scientists mentioned that it would be like reading the date of a penny from almost 3 thousand miles away. Another interesting fact is that this information is not brand new. The actual data for this image was captured in 2017, but it took 2 years to fully process it. One aspect of this article that made me curious is knowing a black hole’s existence and location based on what orbits around it. Based on this fact, the reason why planets orbit around the sun, or the spiral shape of the Milky Way galaxy is because of the black hole that is in the center. The concept of time in our world is created based on the planet’s rotations, so what happens to time in the black hole? Or what would happen if we travelled light years away to a different star, would time then exist differently? Could astronauts one day time travel decades into the future by spending a day in space? Thinking about something as mysterious as black holes makes all the science fiction impossible theories seem possible.

Neel V. Patel is a journalist, from New York, who mainly focuses on writing about science and technology. This audience for this article is the general population of teenagers and adults, it is to inform them of the historical day of the very first black hole image, something that was meant to be impossible. The author shows credibility by including interviews from various astronomers and scientists who introduce information before the author further clarifies or provides details relating to the topic. Another message conveyed through this article is to give hope for the new advancements they were able to get close to after making their breakthrough with the EHT. They promise that from this point on they will only improve further, just as they did with their first long distance image breakthrough with the former planet, Pluto.