![Powehi / First Image of Black Hole Powehi / First Image of Black Hole](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/029/252/A-Consensus.jpg)
Powehi / First Image of Black Hole
Part of a series on Space. [View Related Entries]
About
Powehi refers to a supermassive black hole that was the first and only black hole to be imaged in history. Revealed to the public by the National Science Foundation on April 10th, 2019, a photograph of the black hole was circulated online as an exploitable.
Origin
On April 10th, 2019, National Science Foundation issued a press release revealing the first ever photograph of a black hole.[1] The photograph of black hole at the center of Messier 87 galaxy was made using the Event Horizon Telescope, an array of eight ground-based radio telescopes designed to capture the image. In the released photograph, a supermassive black hole and its shadow can be seen.
![First Image of a Black Hole](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/480/218/dab.jpg)
Spread
On the same day, National Science Foundation tweeted the image, with the post accumulating over 29,700 retweets and 53,400 likes within 12 hours.[2]
Multiple major news outlets reported on the story, including news articles by ABC News,[3] Telegraph,[4], CNN[5] and BBC.[6]
In the hours following the public release of the image, it gained significant popularity online as an exploitable. For example, a post made by Redditor Dragonjazz, referncing Surprised Pikachu meme, gained over 33,600 upvotes in four hours.[7]
![Humans are much interest Black Hole : I don't give off visible light.. you literally can't take pictures of me Some intelligent thing on a rock: *does it anyway* Black Hole:](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/480/219/711.png)
Katie Bouman
On April 10th, 2019, Redditor iKojan tweeted a photograph of Dr. Katie Bouman, identifying her as "the computer scientist behind the first ever image of a black-hole" (shown below). Within 48 hours, the post gathered upwards of 195,800 points (86% upvoted) and 6,200 comments on /r/pics.[8]
![Katie Bouman](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/481/029/c27.jpg)
That day, Redditor GrumpyWendigo posted the photo to /r/photoshopbattles,[9] where numerous edited examples were submitted in the comments. Meanwhile, a post titled "This is Andrew Chael. He wrote 850,000 of the 900,000 lines of code that were written in the historic black hole image algorithm" to /r/pics,[13] which was subsequently deleted for having an "inappropriate title." The following day, Redditor SmellyTheBluCow submitted a post titled "Katie Bouman should not be getting credit for the picture if the black hole" to /r/unpopularopinion,[11] citing the project's GitHub page showing that programmers Andrew Chael and Michael Johnson contributed a majority of commits. That day, Chael posted a thread on Twitter condemning "sexist attacks" on Bouman (shown below).
(1/7) So apparently some (I hope very few) people online are using the fact that I am the primary developer of the eht-imaging software library (https://t.co/n7djw1r9hY) to launch awful and sexist attacks on my colleague and friend Katie Bouman. Stop.
— Andrew Chael (@thisgreyspirit) April 12, 2019
On April 12th, Redditor DankMemesKing777 posted an edited version of the photo with Minecraft on her computer screen to /r/dankmemes,[10] where it gained over 54,200 points (93% upvoted) and 560 comments. That same day, The Washington Post[12] published an article about the online controversy surrounding Bouman's work titled "Trolls hijacked a scientist’s image to attack Katie Bouman. They picked the wrong astrophysicist."
![Katie Bouman playing Minecraft edit](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/481/031/e83.jpg)
Various Examples
![Wait a Second That's not a black hole](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/480/239/4ae.jpg)
![Seriously though, this is an amazing feat! Manga Anime Netflix Adaptation](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/480/221/e28.jpg)
![me irl](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/480/224/f96.jpg)
![Ring of Death The photo of the black hole is blurry, but if you zoom and enhance then you can see its full destructive power](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/480/237/e77.jpg)
![Enhance that](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/480/220/1b6.jpg)
![I heard you guys like content with effort Black Hole : I don't give off visible light.. you literally can't take pictures of me Some intelligent thing on a rock: *does it anyway* Black Hole:](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/480/223/20d.png)
Search Interest
External References
[1] National Science Foundation – Astronomers capture first image of a black hole
[2] Twitter – @NSF's Post
[3] ABC News – Black hole image released by Event Horizon Telescope team in world first
[4] Telegraph – Black hole seen for first time in image showing matter being sucked into timeless oblivion
[5] CNN – This is the first photo of a black hole
[6] BBC – First ever black hole image released
[7] Reddit – Humans are much interest
[9] Reddit – /r/photoshopbattles
[10] Reddit – /r/dankmemes
[11] Reddit – /r/unpopularopinion
[12] The Washington Post – Trolls hijacked a scientists image to attack Katie Bouman
Top Comments
Commissar Eski
Apr 10, 2019 at 02:11PM EDT
Generic Nick
Apr 10, 2019 at 02:29PM EDT in reply to