First picture of a black hole: download it as wallpaper for smartphone

The first photo of a black hole has been unveiled by the Horizon Telescope Event, an international collaboration aimed at pooling telescope observations around the world, recreating a kind of virtual telescope as big as the diameter of the telescope. Earth. So, they were able to capture this image, which we turned into wallpaper for smartphones!

First picture of a black hole

If, like some of our team members, you were glued to the Event Horizon Telescope press conference that unveiled the world's first black hole photo, then we thought you'd enjoy being able to enjoy a ready-to-use wallpaper. Of course, this image, calculated from data from telescopes all around the world, is that of an object located in the heart of the galaxy Messier 87, 55 million light years from Earth. It is therefore pretty vague.

Our historic photo wallpaper of a black hole

Yet the scientists will tell you rightly, that it is in reality of an unheard resolution. Because the virtual telescope (or rather the sum of many telescopes around the world) would be the equivalent of a real telescope whose diameter would be equivalent to that of our planet. In itself, nothing but this technological prowess - that of using many telescopes at a time to make such observations - has something to impress.

In addition to having a historical significance, this photo once again brilliantly confirms the theory of general relativity of Einstein while giving precise information on the phenomenon. The characteristics of its luminous disk - which is in fact the only visible part of the object, in addition to its "shadow" - depend directly on its mass. Thus the shadow in the center hides an object with a mass equivalent to 6.5 ... billion times that of the sun.

We propose you to directly download the wallpaper on your smartphone, optimized for a definition 1440 x 3040 @ 550 ppi and lower: