Khaberni - Scientists from the "Event Horizon Telescope" project are preparing to achieve an unprecedented scientific feat by monitoring the movement of a black hole for the first time in history, a step that may change scientists' understanding of the nature of these mysterious cosmic bodies and their role in the evolution of galaxies.
As reported by "The Guardian", the scientists will focus on the massive black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy, which has a mass equivalent to six billion times that of the sun, and spans an area roughly the size of the entire solar system.
After the telescope successfully published the first image of a black hole shadow in 2019, this time the team plans to capture a sequence of images over March and April 2026, which will later be merged to create the first film showing the movement of the rotating material disk at the edge of the event horizon.
Scientist Sera Markov, one of the project founders, said that these observations might help scientists understand the rotation speed of the black hole, how the massive cosmic jets it releases are formed, phenomena that directly affect the development of galaxies, and even the galaxies surrounding them.
The Event Horizon Telescope relies on a global network of 12 radio observatories distributed from the South Pole to Europe and Asia, and with the rotation of the earth, these observatories can capture serial images of the black hole every few days, given its relatively slow motion despite its enormous size.
Although the observation will be conducted in the spring of 2026, the vast amount of data requires a long time to process, as the hard disks must be transported from the South Pole to analysis centers in Europe and the United States, which means that the world may wait for months before seeing the first animated shots of a black hole in action.
