We now have the first image of a black hole that is located at the heart of Messier 87. Apart from being a massive scientific breakthrough, the image is also entertaining people as they compare it to other things, from the ordinary to fictional.
What do people say the black hole looks like?
Eye Of Sauron
One of the first things that people noticed about the image of the black hole is that it looks rather like the Eye of Sauron from the J.R.R. Tolkien classic The Lord of the Rings. The Eye of Sauron was the symbol adopted by the fallen Maia and creator of the One Ring, Sauron. It appears as a fiery, lidless eye over Barad-Dur and became a symbol of power and fear.
Many quickly saw the resemblance between the Eye and the black hole, and some even jested that the Eye of Sauron is staring back at us when we look into space.
Apart from the Eye of Sauron, people also compared the black hole to many other things, comparing it to donuts, a blurry bagel, cat eyes, and even the Monsters Inc. Character, Mike Wazowski.
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun pic.twitter.com/AymXilKhKe — Event Horizon 'Scope (@ehtelescope) April 10, 2019
First Image Of A Black Hole
The first image of a black hole was taken using the Even Horizon Telescope’s (EHT) observations of the galaxy Messier 87. This black hole in particular is 55 million light-years away from the Earth and is 6.5 billion times more massive than our Sun.
Before this image was taken, the only way that scientists know about the existence of black holes is by the way the objects around it are behaving. For instance, when a black hole devours a nearby star, the star emits X-ray signals that can be detected by instruments.
“We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago,” said EHT project director Sheperd S. Doeleman.
