New telescope array will capture the first-ever photograph of a black hole

• Global network of 50 telescopes will capture 'shadow' of black hole
• Black holes normally invisible as gravity sucks in light
• Crucial test for Einstein's theory

An illustration of a black hole: A new telescope array could allow scientists to photograph a black hole for the first time - teaming up 50 radio telescopes around the world into a global telescope that will capture the 'shadow' of a black hole for the first time

A new telescope array could allow scientists to photograph a black hole for the first time - teaming up 50 radio telescopes around the world into a global telescope that will capture the 'shadow' of a black hole for the first time.

Scientists will meet on Wednesday 18th to discuss the project, which will also test Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.

The project - called the Event Horizon Telescope - could capture the first images of the huge black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

The 'supermassive black hole' is four million times the mass of our sun, but so far away that it appears to astronomers about the same size as a grapefruit on the moon.

The Event Horizon in the telescope's name refers to the boundary at the edge of a black hole beyond which the laws of physics  cannot describe what happens.

It is a 'point of no return' - from which no light or radiation can escape.
Because of it, black holes are invisible from Earth.

The idea of black holes was first raised by Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity, and has been confirmed by decades of measurements and observations of space.

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