The first image ever made of a black hole from data gathered by a network of radio telescopes around the world (Image: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/Maunakea Observatories via AP)
Scientists have detected light “echoing” from behind a black hole for the first time ever, proving Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity from a century ago.
It is generally accepted that due to a black hole’s extremely powerful gravitational pull, even light that gets sucked in can never escape.
The group of researchers from Stanford University, led by astrophysicist Dan Wilkins, discovered, however, that a black hole’s gravity warping spacetime in its vicinity also allows light to “echo” or bend around it.
The phenomenon effectively proved Einstein’s predictions of how gravity bends light around black holes, the European Space Agency (ESA) said in a release on July 28.
TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
In the recent study, published in the journal , the scientists recorded the light coming from behind a black hole using the ESA’s XMM-Newton and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) NuSTAR space telescopes.
Before stumbling upon the phenomenon, the team was initially studying a supermassive black hole’s corona. Coronas produce extremely bright flares of X-ray light seen above black holes.