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RE: In case you haven't seen it yet.
I really don't understand this at all, a black hole emits nothing, the only thing we can actually "see" is light, so how can you have a photograph of a black hole? Never mind the fact that this one is supposed to be 55 million light years away, imagine the distortions this image (without light) must have had in that time. By the way the people who did this say it isn't actually a picture of a black hole more like of its shadow.
@gduran
Rather than actually seeing the black hole our photograph comes from the light being bent closely around the black holes event horizon. It turns out that having a sufficiently massive object creates a "gravity well" which noticeably bends the very fabric of space time and the trajectory of light within it.
In the image below the ring you see is the gravitational lensing from an entire galaxy, but it produces a similar effect.
In case your interested I recently wrote this article which might give you a more thorough explanation.
Of course feel free to reply to me (either here or under my article) if you have any more questions! I would be very happy to see what I can do. :)
"...a black hole emits nothing..."
I'm under the impression that this is not exactly the case. Virtual particles can be turned into normal particles by the gravitational effects of a black hole. This is the source of Hawking radiation, which is a phenomenon that causes black holes to emit mass and energy over time and to eventually disappear.
At least this is expected. I'm not sure these effects have been experimentally demonstrated or observed yet.
Also, while not produced directly by the black hole, light is generated by matter falling into the black hole being compressed and subject to friction before it actually crosses the event horizon.
And yet all of this is theory.