On the 10th of April, 2019, the first-ever photo of a black hole was released. It measures 40 billion kilometers across – three million times the size of the Earth – and has been described as a “monster” by scientists. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight telescopes, captured the photo. A team of 200 scientists worked for a decade to produce a photograph of a black hole, once thought to be unphotographable. There is a bright “ring of fire” surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole in the picture. A bright halo is caused by super-heated gas falling into the hole. Despite the distance from Earth, it can be seen clearly because its light is brighter than all the billions of other stars combined in the galaxy.
Meanwhile, the scientists were inspecting the image of a black hole, some people on social media were making memes. As soon as the black hole image went viral on the internet, memes began appearing – from comparisons to the legendary Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings to Trump’s inevitable association.
