NRAO Contest Winners Illustrate Diverse Cosmic Phenomena

Winners in NRAO’s VLA 40th Anniversary Image Contest are from around the world, and their works illustrate a fascinating variety of celestial objects. Entries combined observational data from the VLA with data from optical, infrared, and X-ray telescopes, and from computer simulations.

EHT image of event horizon in the central supermassive black hole of M87

Radio Astronomy and Black Holes

Using the EHT, with ALMA as its most sensitive component, astronomers have captured the first direct visual evidence of a black hole: an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87 (M87), a giant elliptical galaxy 55 million light-years from Earth.