The first image of a black hole

Scientific developments

Shapiro time delay

Several years ago it became evident that a new test of general relativity was technically feasible.The proposed experiment was designed toverify the prediction that the speed of propagation of a light ray decreases as it passes through a region of increasing gravitational potential.For a radar pulse transmitted from the earthand reflected by another planet, the increase in the round-trip time delay, attributable to thepredicted gravitational influence of the sun onthe propagation, would be ~=200 sec if the pathof the pulse were to graze the solar limb.

— Fourth Test of General Relativity: Preliminary Results, by Irwin I. Shapiro, Gordon H. Pettengill, Michael E. Ash, Melvin L. Stone,William B. Smith, Richard P. Ingalls, and Richard A. Brockelman.

The research group involved in the Fourth Test of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, posed und...

The first image of a black hole

On April 10, 2019, the first image ever captured of a black hole was presented to the public. But what were the events that lead to this discovery?