Commentary: What it means to actually ‘see’ a black hole

This image released Wednesday, April 10, 2019, by Event Horizon Telescope shows a black hole. Scientists revealed the first image ever made of a black hole after assembling data gathered by a network of radio telescopes around the world. (Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/Maunakea Observatories via AP) “We have seen what we thought was unseeable,” the astronomer said, like someone who knows history’s ear is pressed against the door. He stood in the hushed attention of the room in Washington as he called up the image on the screen behind him. You know it by now: a smoke ring, an orange doughnut, a blurry circlet of light closed around a profound darkness. By the end of the day, it would be familiar to millions of people as the first photo ever taken of a black hole.

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