First Simulated Image of a Black Hole

Entry
Clipping 002
Date
Tags
Black hole, Astrophysics, Simulation, Hand-plotted, 1979
A 1979 simulated black hole, rendered in white dots on black: a dark central shadow ringed by a lopsided glowing disc.

The first simulated image of a black hole, produced by astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet in 1979. He calculated the appearance of a black hole and its accretion disc on an IBM computer, then plotted the result by hand, inking dots onto negative paper to render the brightness. The asymmetric glow shows how the black hole’s gravity bends light from the disc around the central shadow.