Re: Image of a Black Hole
Reply #5 –
CGI starts with man made data, usually generated from a CAD program as an STL file, it's not a measurement.
The effort is extraordinary, especially when you realise some media groups initially reported it wrongly as the black hole in our local galactic center about 100,000 light years away.
The image is the center of M87 53,000,000 light years away!
A read a crazy human analogy about the effort,
"It's equivalent to siting in a cafe in Paris, and reading a newspaper left on a table in New York!"
another analogy,
"Taking a Full HD photograph of a dough-nut somebody left behind on the moon!"
(That is if that wasn't all a conspiracy, the existence of moon dough-nuts! ) 
a joking analogy,
"Like feeling the flap of a butterfly's wings from the other side of the planet, but only if the planet is really round!"
On a more serious note, the way it's reported is misleading even when they correctly identify the source. The image actually shows the shadow cast by the central black hole, not the black hole or the black hole event horizon. You can think of it as a fog that dims the light surrounding the black hole!
However from measuring this shadow they get an indirect measure of the black hole itself and it's event horizon, as well as new ways to determine new or confirm old facts about things like relativity, dark energy and dark matter.
Ripper stuff, Spotted One. Thank you for that. I confess to being fascinated with all things science and the cosmos. My first and favourite toy was a telescope, second a microscope, third... well, that's another subject best left out of here, let's just say a healthy young lad's favourite toy!!!
I find the concept of a black hole absolutely captivating. I think I heard it described as if it were the size of a marble it would weigh about the same as the Earth! Holy mackerel. That's just about as much density there is between Andrew Bolt's ears! In one respect I'd love to live another 100 years just to observe the scientific discoveries, and perhaps experience space travel.