Our beginning and our end …
The new image of the black hole in the Messier 87 galaxy. L. Medeiros (Institute for Advanced Study), D. Psaltis (Georgia Tech), T. Lauer (NSF’s NOIRLab), and F. Ozel (Georgia Tech).
Source
What the image shows is the ‘photon ring’ that surrounds the gravitational mass of the black hole. The photon ring is a boundary layer, the last gasp of light as it is dragged into the black hole (yes, that’s the void in the middle of the ring that we cannot actually see).
Interesting detail: the photon ring is brighter towards the bottom of the image because the ring is spinning mind-bogglingly fast and where the ring is brighter is the result of the Doppler effect – the brighter part of the ring is spinning towards us (…well, that’s the hypothesis anyway!)
Even more beautiful is the black hole at the centre of our own galaxy: Sagittarius A*