The M87 black hole is a supermassive black hole located in the center of the M87 galaxy, about 53.5 million light-years away from Earth. This black hole was the first to be imaged directly using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which is a network of radio telescopes that work together to form a virtual telescope with an angular resolution equivalent to a dish as wide as the Earth.

The M87 black hole has a mass of about 6.5 billion times that of the Sun and is surrounded by a spinning disk of gas and dust, which is being gradually sucked into the black hole’s event horizon. The event horizon is the point of no return, beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape the black hole’s gravity.
The image of the M87 black hole, which was released to the public on April 10, 2019, is a testament to the power of human collaboration and technological advancement. Scientists from around the world worked together for years to capture the image, using complex algorithms and data processing techniques to piece together the signals received by the EHT.
The image itself shows a dark, circular region surrounded by a bright ring of light, which is caused by the intense gravitational pull of the black hole bending and distorting the surrounding light. This distortion is known as gravitational lensing and is one of the key predictions of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
The M87 black hole is not only a fascinating object of study for astrophysicists, but it also has important implications for our understanding of the universe as a whole. Black holes are some of the most extreme objects