I wrote of this (after a related trip I now regret), in early April of 2017 -- and it finally looks to be a reality, with press conferences across the globe slated for next week. So I will re-post the slightly-altered original, edited for subsequently developing events, directly below. With crinkling eyes, grinning, then:
Using a virtual radio scope, essentially the size of the Earth itself (a half-dozen radio dishes, spanning the globe, were lashed to one another, by software links) -- the idea was to capture a non-visible light "image" of the black hole (and its event horizon), on an oblique angle, to the center of our own galaxy.
It seems that effort has succeeded. Late in 2018 or early 2019, we will likely see a representation at least -- of the most lonely of places -- a place from which no light, no heat -- and no soft, lilting voices ever escape -- an event horizon. Where time itself. . . stops. [It will take more than a year and a half to process the data, into an image.]
Until we have that image -- transformed into visible wave-lengths -- for our human eyes to decipher. . . I will leave you with this, at right.
And. . . as I write this down, I know that any amount of feeling alone is merely a matter of relative degrees -- it dawns on me that we are (as I've modified Taylor) -- simply raindrops on the midnight pavement of stars. . . . among hundreds of billions, in this local cluster alone.
Or as Milton wrote -- we look up, into a Milky Way, "powdered with stars. . . ." powdered with. . . in all likelihood, billions more of. . . us.
Humbling indeed, in her glistening, crinkled space near-eternity. . . [as she increments -- by two. Smile.]
Be well, one and all.
नमस्ते
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