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entire Earth. Since those days in that chalk-dusted classroom at MIT, my funny, utterly unconventional friend has been determined to capture the image of a supermassive black hole all the same.
During our years in graduate school, Shep’s hair was an allegory for his mind — wild and spirited. I admired the freedom I sensed in the way he thought, always forging unexpected connections, sometimes at the expense of the required lesson. His shocked eyes would warn me that a crazy idea had struck him just at that precise moment, as though he was as surprised as I was by the thought.
The Event Horizon Telescope is a testament to bold ideas, as well as scientific ingenuity and collaboration. Exploiting large radio telescopes around the globe — relying on the newest, most sophisticated observatories and reviving some that were nearly defunct — EHT became a composite telescope the size of the Earth. As the planet spins and orbits, the target black holes rise into the field of view of component telescopes around the planet. To render a precise image, the telescopes need to operate as one, which involves sensitive time corrections so that one global eye looks toward the black hole.
"I am moved by the image of a species looking together at an image of a curious empty hole looming in space."
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-the-sight-of-a-black-hole-means-to-a-black-hole-physicist-20190410/