Black hole first
On Thursday, April 11, 2019 news broke worldwide about the first-ever photograph of a black hole, finally and conclusively proving their existence, as well as visually confirming Albert Einstein’s 1915 General Theory of Relativity - a comprehensive explanation of gravity. The picture above is that same image from the front page of the Friday, April 12, 2019 edition of the Japan Times print newspaper. It’s the same image shared by the world’s media during the week of April 8.
The convenience store clerk who sold me my paper that morning excitedly said to me, in English, "First image!" I don't like talking excessively with over-familiar convenience store clerks, because I'm not their friend, I'm their customer.
The data used to create the image was collected in April 2017 from the center of a massive galaxy called Messier 87 (M87) in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster 55 million light years away. Over 100 scientists were involved. They staked out eight telescopes atop mountains on four continents, synchronized them, pointed them at the sky and waited. The image itself was resolved in the summer of 2018 - it took that long to crunch the data. Getting a picture of a black hole’s edge is difficult, and getting a clear picture is something else entirely. And until now, it has never been done. So far, scientists have detected black holes only indirectly, by their signatures, such as a gamma ray burst, supernova or, perhaps, an object on the brink of a black hole’s event horizon.
I question the excitement the image is generating. First, what did people think a black hole would look like? This picture looks pretty much like the artists' renditions we've been shown before. Second, it is not a "photograph" the way most people understand that word. The measurements taken of the black hole are at a wave length the human eye cannot see, so astronomers added color to the image to create this picture. By definition, we cannot "see" a black hole, because it does not emit light. Instead, the international team responsible for this project was able to show the black hole by casting its silhouette against the bright light emitted by the hot gas and dust swirling on the edge of the event horizon. That in itself is impressive, I admit, like looking for a tennis ball on the surface of the moon with the naked eye. Third, the contribution of women to the project, which some women friends on Facebook are eulogizing as if they were revealing a deliberately hidden secret, was nothing of the sort. Feminists spun the story as if it betrayed a male conspiracy to belittle women's contribution. But I read three different stories about the black hole and it seems to me that the contribution of women was never hidden or denied. Jessica Doleman, the deputy director of the East Asian Observatory in Hawaii; Sera Markoff, professor of high-energy physics at the University of Amsterdam; and, MIT graduate student Katie Boumen. I resent attempts to sexualize science. Feminists might think they are rebalancing a chronic male-leaning imbalance, but I don't see it that way.
The black hole in M87 was quickly christened with the Hawaiian name “Powehi,” which means “the adorned fathomless dark creation” or “embellished dark source of unending creation” according to the Associated Press.