10 Most Important Scientific Discoveries Of 2019

If you thought astronomers were constantly taking images of the night sky, you would be right, but they don't always use normal visible means of seeing objects far away. Modern astronomy uses everything from visible light and X-rays to radio waves and other means to see things, which are invisible to the naked eye.

For a long time, none of these methods could capture a black hole or its event horizon visibly, and it was long thought beyond the means of science. In April, the impossible was finally achieved as the first image of a black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87 was compiled and released upon the world.

This was a significant astronomical milestone, as black holes had previously been detected via their gravitational impact on their environment, but never seen. More than 200 researchers teamed up to link telescopes all over the planet together to capture the amazing image via a project called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

The captured image resulted in petabytes of data, which was combined using highly specialized supercomputers into a single image, showing the shadow of the black hole, not the black hole itself, as they do not emit light, and instead, trap it within their immense gravity. The black hole is located 55 million light-years from Earth.