347 scientists who collaborated to produce the world’s first image of Black Hole on Thursday won the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics also known as the “Oscars of science.” The prize money for the award amounts to $3 million.
The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration made to the global headline when they first published the image of the Black Hole on April 10th. The image of the super massive black hole circled by a flame-orange halo of white hot plasma stunned people across the globe.
Congratulations to the @ehtelescope team on being awarded the 2020 #BreakthroughPrize in Fundamental Physics for their image of the massive black hole in the center of galaxy M87 https://t.co/E3Tcg0Jhw6 Black holes are awesome pic.twitter.com/Ff0f1K1K0o
— LIGO (@LIGO) September 5, 2019
Directed by Shep Doelman at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, the team spent over a decade simulating an Earth-sized computational Telescope that combined the signals received by eight radio telescopes working in pairs around the world with their sights trained on the Messier 87, galaxy, 55 million light-years away.
The event horizon of a Black Hole is the point at which gravitational effects are strong that light cannot escape its pull.
This helped them receive an unprecedented resolution and observe the Black Hole’s silhouette for the first time in history, confirming theoretical predictions about these celestial objects.
“For many years, I would tell people that we were going to image a black hole, and they would say, ‘Well, we’ll believe it when we see it,’ Doelman said in an interview.
“But when you finally come with very strong evidence, when you make a breakthrough like this, then you have the satisfaction of really giving birth to a new field.
“We are now in an era of precision imaging of black holes, we can approach the event horizon and map space time for the first time,” he added.
The event horizon of a Black Hole is the point at which gravitational effects are strong that light cannot escape its pull.
Read more: Scientists set to unveil first picture of a black hole
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to recognize and reward the world’s top scientists launched the award Breakthrough Prize. Scientists and researchers from other fields including life sciences and mathematics also took home $3 million.