One of the most fascinating aspects of black holes is their mysterious "point of no return" - also referred to as an event horizon - where gravity is so strong that light and material cannot escape it. Now, scientists are planning on attempting to take the first photo of this elusive area for the first time ever using the Event Horizon Telescope, according to ABC News. The picture is set to be taken in 2017, and the research team will utilize a network of nine telescopes in order to capture a black hole in our own Milky Way galaxy called Sagittarius A*.
While black holes have been photographed numerous times in the past, this new venture, if successful, will mark the first time that an event horizon is caught on camera. In order to ensure that the project goes according to plan, researchers have determined the exact wavelength of light, 1.3 mm, that will be used in the project to capture the photo, according to the Epoch Times.
"We've run upwards of a million simulations, for many different configurations of what that gas might look like. And in all cases, we think that the 1.3mm wavelength is the right choice to see down to the event horizon," Feryal Ozel, a professor at the University of Arizona, told BBC News. "We're almost there. The phasing in of the instruments has been done, the receivers are in place and the theoretical work has been done."
One of the reasons that 1.3 mm is such an ideal wavelength is due to the light's ability to effortlessly travel through the Earth's atmosphere into the telescopes that hope to capture the event horizon.
Researchers believe that the event horizon of Sagittarius A* will be approximately 17 times bigger than the sun, although its distance from Earth - 25,000 light years - will give it a smaller appearance in the sky.
"There are quite a few challenges that need to be overcome to take a picture of a black hole - it's something that's extremely small in the sky," Ozel explained. "But what we're hoping for is a full array observation in early 2017."
