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A Beautiful Physics Doubt

"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect"

 By Samuel Johnson 

 One of the curious doubts asked by a physics lover on "The Grand Old Universe" was :-

'Why it was difficult to get a picture of black hole earlier? What are the changes in technology that made it possible?' 



I, The Physics Expert will crear that doubt in this post

The answer is :-
The work that allowed this photo to be taken has been going on for decades. It meant overcoming difficulties that have seemed impossible.
The central difficulty with trying to get pictures of black holes is given away in their name: they are black because they have such a strong gravitational pull that light falls into them and can’t escape. As such, it can’t get to here and we can’t take a photograph of it.
To get through all of that difficulty, astronomers had to work to join eight different dishes up into one huge virtual telescope, allowing them to work together and see further than they would individually. That happened in April 2017 – scientists have been working to pick through the results in the years since.
They were synchronised together using a technique called very-long-baseline interferometry or VLBI. It allowed the astronomers to achieve a level of angular resolution equivalent to reading a newspaper in New York from a pavement cafe in Paris.
Even then, the details were sketchy: they had to look through all the data received to ensure that they were seeing what they thought they were. That required complex analysis of the data using algorithms as well as scientific understanding, to allow them to fill in the gaps in the grainy and unclear images and produce the one that flew around the world on Wednesday.
The person behind all of this is Katie Bouman

Katie Bouman led development of a computer program that made it possible 'to join eight different dishes up into one huge virtual telescope, allowing them to work together and see further than they would individually'

This also proved Einstein's General theory of Relativity.
I hope you have got your answer
If you have any other doubts please feel free to ask me
Your Physics Expert Signing Off
Khushil


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