A major technological and scientific breakthrough happened this past April with the release of the first photo of a black hole. The picture showed a black circle surrounded by an orange ring, that of the black hole at the galaxy Messier 87 or M87, located about 55-million light years from Earth. But what made this landmark photograph possible? Innovator Peter Zieve explains below.

Central to the taking of the photograph is the Event Horizon Telescope project. This is a network of eight radio telescopes located in five continents, which simultaneously observed the same area of space within a week over two years back in April 2017.

Clearly these massive telescopes are not just traditional or conventional ones, as a normal telescope would have to be about the size of the entire Earth to take the snapshot of the M87 black hole. Therefore, the eight telescopes had to work in unison and required the concerted efforts of a bunch of scientists. Also, sky conditions had to be ideally clear in all telescope stations during that observation period.

Though the project’s observation duration just took a week, the gathered data had to be closely analyzed and sorted for months. One of the scientists even claimed that the collected information was the equivalent of 5,000 years of mp3 files. In any case, the resulting black hole image is truly haunting, a testament to the massive leaps of modern science and another proof of the brilliance of Einstein, Peter Zieve adds.

Peter Zieve is an inventor and innovator with 23 patents. He is a devoted husband, father, entrepreneur, engineer, and leader. He also provides educational assistance for students who want to pursue a STEM career. More reads on innovative technology here.