Scientists at the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project recently revealed the first image ever taken of a black hole. The black hole in the newly photographed image is at the center of the distant galaxy Messier 87 (M87), a giant galaxy in the Virgo galaxy cluster. The black hole is about 55 million light-years from Earth and has the mass of six and half billion suns.

This was a feat implemented by a group of more than 200 astronomers including Vietnamese scientists who are specialists working at the East Asia Observatory of which Vietnam is a member country

“Vietnamese astrophysicists did not analyze specific data directly from the EHT project, but we worked with the data recorded from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope at the East Asia Observatory, one of the astronomical member stations of EHT,” said Dr Pham Ngoc Diep from the Department of Astrophysics and Space.

According to Diep, such international cooperation projects offer opportunities for Vietnamese scientists to work with the most modern telescopes, and the best data and pioneering projects of science.

EHT is a virtual glass system that consists of 8 radio telescopes designed to photograph black holes. It is a glass system with the highest ever sensitivity and resolution.

Forming EHT was a big challenge which required scientists to upgrade and connect eight telescopes built around the world and all situated in high places. These include volcanoes in Hawaii and Mexico, mountains in Arizona, Spain's Nevada mountains, the Atacama desert of Chile, and Antarctica.

EHT is the result of years of international cooperation efforts, opening up an opportunity for scientists to study black holes, mentioned in Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

The recent discovery was on the 100th anniversary of the first historical experiment to confirm the correctness of the theory of relativity.

“It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we obtained from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again,” Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London said on BBC News.

Black holes are uncommon cosmic objects that have enormous mass but are extremely compact in size. Their presence affects the surrounding environment in extreme ways: they curve spacetime and heat everything around them to ultra high temperatures.

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