News & Stories

2021

Stories
Physics, High Energy Physics, Research
Expert Series: Into the Darkest Mystery
 Sixty years ago, the whole world was gladly amazed when the first human blasted into space; over the years, hundreds of exploration missions have been deployed to extend our knowledge and understanding of the universe. Of all the space mysteries scientists still hope to solve, black holes remain the strangest and most mysterious phenomena we know so little about. After decades of effort, scientists finally reached a major milestone when they came face to face with a black hole by capturing its first-ever image in 2019, and a more detailed one earlier this year. The ground-breaking images show the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87, a galaxy about 54 million light-years away from Earth. The black hole's mass is equivalent to 6.5 billion suns.