Light in the Darkness

In April 2019, about four billion people around the world were able to see the first image of a black hole in history (55 million light-years from Earth, the center of the galaxy M87). Heino Falcke, who led the international... team of researchers, and science journalist Jörg Römer wrote a book about what preceded the birth of this image. Readers of "Light in the Darkness" will learn how a group of enthusiastic scientists first convinced resource distributors (money, radio telescopes, powerful computers) to allocate enough for the planned project, and then conducted observations, analyzed the data, and obtained the long-awaited image. "The mythical creature of cosmic dimensions took on form and color, and every person was able to see it," summarizes Falcke. He worked on this project for more than twenty years, and as a believer, a lay pastor, he was not afraid that many refer to black holes as "gates of hell," for the goal of science is to push the boundaries of the unknown.