A rare scientific occurrence has marveled many today.
According to an announcement by researchers at the National Science Foundation Wednesday morning, they captured an image of the super massive black hole and its shadow at the center of a galaxy known as M87.
This is the first direct visual evidence that black holes exist, the researchers said.
In the image, a central dark region is encapsulated by a ring of light that looks brighter on one side.
The massive galaxy, called Messier 87 or M87, is near the Virgo galaxy cluster 55 million light-years from Earth.
The super massive black hole has a mass that is 6.5 billion times that of our sun.
“We have seen what we thought was unseeable,” said Sheperd Doeleman, director of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.
“We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole.”