Over four nights in April 2017, eight different radio-wave telescopes across the globe fixed their gazes on a single infinitesimally small point—the black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy (M87*). Around 55 million light-years from Earth, M87* and the hot plasma surrounding it create only a minuscule smudge on the night sky. To resolve an image from that distance would require a 13,000-kilometer telescope—roughly the diameter of Earth. Alternatively, the researchers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Project stitched together an Earth-sized telescope using a set of radio-wave telescopes distributed around the globe. These telescopes were synchronized…
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