![]() Called Sagittarius A*, that black hole is relatively puny compared to M87, containing the mass of just four million suns. The Event Horizon Telescope initially set out to snag an image of the supermassive black hole at the core of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Photograph by NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Orange on the moon In this Hubble image, the blue jet contrasts with the yellow glow from the combined light of M87's stars and star clusters. The center of M87 glows with a gargantuan cosmic searchlight: a black-hole-powered jet of subatomic particles traveling at nearly the speed of light. “Nature has conspired to let us see something we thought was invisible.” “It’s truly remarkable, it’s almost humbling in a certain way,” Doeleman says. The data also offer some hints about how some supermassive black holes manage to unleash gargantuan jets of particles traveling at near light-speed. One of the chief takeaways is a more direct calculation of the black hole’s mass, which tracks closely with estimates derived from the motion of orbiting stars. Six papers published today in the Astrophysical Journal Lettersdescribe the observational tour de force, the process of achieving it, and the details that the image reveals. “What you are seeing is evidence of an event horizon … we now have visual evidence of a black hole.” “We are delighted to be able to report to you today that we have seen what we thought was unseeable,” added project director Shep Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Institute for Astrophysics. ![]() “We’ve been studying black holes for so long that sometimes it’s easy to forget that none of us has ever seen one,” National Science Foundation director France Cordova said today during a press conference announcing the team’s achievement, held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Debating which images should or shouldn’t have been ranked, and how high, would be an appropriate way to mark the past half century of NASA’s accomplishments.Please be respectful of copyright. We welcome the discussion we know this list will spark. Although a satellite had returned a picture of the whole Earth in 1967, it wasn’t until humans saw this view for the first time a year later that it entered our collective mind. This particular shot was from Apollo 17, but all of the moon-bound astronauts took similar photos. Used significantly by the environmental movement (although NOT, as often reported, the inspiration for Earth Day). Topping the list is the view of the whole Earth above, arguably the most influential image to come out of the American space program. Our only excuse is that the ranking reflects the affinity of the division of space history staff for space topics. We also recognize that, even though the first “A” in NASA stands for “aeronautics,” our list is light on aeronautical breakthroughs. Photos from the Apollo moon program predominate, as well they should-it remains the agency’s crowning achievement. The list omits significant events from space history that were not NASA achievements, such as the famous 1958 photograph of Wernher von Braun and the other architects of the Explorer 1 satellite celebrating their success by holding a model of the satellite over their heads, an event that occurred months before NASA existed. Many wonderful images did not make the final cut-we couldn’t convince the editors to give us 20 pages instead of 10. The rationale for why any one image ranked two slots higher than any other combines several factors, including our attempt to balance the list between human spaceflight, satellite imaging, and planetary exploration. ![]() We recognize that any such ranking is inherently subjective. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which began its operations on October 1, 1958, we offer this list of the 50 most memorable images from NASA’s history ( see all 50 in the photo gallery below).
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