11 Apr 2019

Black hole: Kiwi mathematician reacts

From Afternoons, 1:36 pm on 11 April 2019

Today the first ever image of a black hole was released. 

It's not the black hole in our Milky Way, rather one located in a distant galaxy, and it took a network of eight telescopes across the world to photograph it. 

It's a big deal for the science community, particularly here in New Zealand. In fact this image proves the theory of University of Canterbury's Professor Roy Kerr, which he worked on back in 1963.

This image released Wednesday, April 10, 2019, by Event Horizon Telescope shows a black hole. Scientists revealed the first image ever made of a black hole after assembling data gathered by a network of radio telescopes around the world.

Photo: AP/ Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration / Maunakea Observatories