13 Achieve Excellence ｜ － 12 Academia Sinica, as Partner of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, Captures the First-Ever Image of a Shadow of a Black Hole With its very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) technology, the EHT synchronizes telescope facilities from around the world and utilizes our planet’s rotation to form one huge Earth-sized telescope. Academia Sinica is a partner in the operarions of three of the eight radio telescopes that joined the EHT array in 2017: SMA, ALMA, and JCMT. Before the ASIAA-led Greenland Telescope (GLT) joined the EHT in 2018, team members had already contributed to this first black hole image in terms of technology development, observation, calibration, image processing, data analysis, and theoretical explanations. The first ever direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow was released in April 2019 as part of a joint effort involving the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) and other members of the EHT Collaboration. This black hole image was made based on EHT observation data from 2017 showing a black hole located at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy consisting of 6.5 billion solar masses and 55 million light-years away from Earth. This image not only represents the culmination of decades of observation and theoretical research, but also demonstrates Taiwan’s important role in global scientific cooperation. “The image of a black hole from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) reveals the extreme physics of most efficient matter and energy conversion, with the immediate applications of this frontier science including technological advances in detectors and sensors, big data science, renewable energy sources, and space science. The research leading up to this black hole image was a result of international scholarly exchange as well as close collaboration between academia and industry.” –Academician Paul Ho, Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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