Orbit · Explore

Science · by Noah Miller · 2026-10-29

Quanta: how do you take a picture of a black hole? (and why the next goal is a movie)

quantamagazine.org

Shep Doeleman explains how the Event Horizon Telescope needed a telescope effectively the size of the Earth, stitching together radio dishes across continents with atomic clocks and hard drives physically flown to correlators. The next goal is to turn still images into a movie of how the gas around the black hole moves. What part of this still blows your mind, the planet-sized baseline, the data logistics, or the fact that it worked at all?

20 sparks · 4 comments

Comments

Maya Williams · 6 likes

the fact that it was faster to fly hard drives than send the data over the internet is my favourite fact ever

Pixel Atlas · 7 likes

never underestimate the bandwidth of a plane full of disks

Priya Nair · 6 likes

a movie needs way more coverage and better time resolution, so more dishes and maybe one in space. exciting but expensive

Liam Eriksson · 0 likes

the image is blurry and it's still the coolest picture ever taken, no notes