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This Is The First Photo Of A Black Hole

April 10, 2019 / 9:48 AM EDT / CBS Detroit

(CNN) -- In April 2017, scientists used a global network of telescopes to see and capture the first-ever picture of a black hole, according to an announcement by researchers at the National Science Foundation Wednesday morning. They captured an image of the black hole at the center of a galaxy known as M87.

This is the first photo of a black hole.

"We have seen what we thought was unseeable," said Sheperd Doeleman, director of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. "We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole."

The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, called EHT, is a global network of telescopes that captured the first-ever photograph of a black hole.

This computer-simulated image from NASA predicts what a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy may look like. CREDIT: D Coe, J. Anderson, R. Van der Marel (STSCI)/ESA/NASA

In their attempt to capture an image of a black hole, scientists combined the power of eight radio telescopes around the world using Very-Long-Baseline-Interferometry, according to the European Southern Observatory, which is part of the EHT. This effectively creates a virtual telescope around the same size as the Earth itself.

Black holes are made up of huge amounts of matter squeezed into a small area, according to NASA, creating a massive gravitational field which draws in everything around it, including light.