The first-ever image of a black hole is now a movie

The first-ever image of a black hole is now a movie



A series of images constructed from observational data and mathematical modelling show the evolution of the black hole at the centre of the M87 galaxy from 2009 to 2017. (Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration; gif compiled by Nature.)

The first black-hole image is now a movie

The historic first image of a black hole, unveiled last year, has now turned into a movie. The short sequence of frames shows how the material of the black hole’s surroundings is stirred into a constant maelstrom by gravity. To create the frames, the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration — which harnesses a planet-wide network of observatories — exhumed old data on the black hole and combined them with a mathematical model based on the image released in April 2019, to show how the surroundings have evolved over eight years.

Nature | 5 min read
Read more: Black hole pictured for first time — in spectacular detail (Nature | 7 min read, from 2019)Reference: The Astrophysical Journal paper