so that's where brexit went!
Scientists have unveiled the first ever picture of a black hole in groundbreaking discovery
Scientists spent 13 years on the trailblazing mission
ITS dark heart sucks all light and life within reach into an unknown dimension at unimaginable speed... but enough about Brexit – look at this first ever picture of a black hole!
The groundbreaking snap was captured by space scientists using telescopes across the planet in a find that experts have boasted is "a huge breakthrough for humanity".
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The black hole, described by scientists as a "monster", is 24billion miles across - 3million times the size of the Earth.
Sitting about 300 million trillion miles away from our planet, it was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the globe known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).
When used together, the telescopes combine with the power of a single telescope "the size of our planet", scientists said.
The black hole is so far away, that taking a photo of it is equivalent to snapping a DVD on the surface of the moon.
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The EHT spent 13 years attempting to photograph a black hole and its first results were presented at a conference in Brussels this afternoon.
"We have accomplished something many thought impossible by imaging the shadow of a black hole and it provides the strongest evidence to date that such evasive and enigmatic entities do indeed exist," said EHT scientist Dr Ziri Younsi, from University College London.
"This observation lays the foundation for future studies of black holes and could play a crucial role in our understanding of the behaviour of light and matter in the most extreme environments in our Universe."
Current theories suggest that black holes are invisible because they have a gravitational pull so strong that they suck in light.
They were first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago – though Einstein himself wasn't sure they existed.
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Since then, scientists have gathered loads of evidence black holes are out there, but have never been able to directly observe them.
The new find, detailed in a near-library of new scientific papers, finally proves Einstein correct.
Across six simultaneous press conferences on Wednesday, scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration heralded their "groundbreaking result".
They said the find is a "huge breakthrough for humanity" that is the "fundamental first step in understanding how nature works."
It is widely thought that every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its centre, including our Milky Way.
The gargantuan black hole at our galaxy's centre is called Sagittarius A*, and EHT has set its sites on this space object since 2006.
Black holes spin so fast that the cosmic material at their edges actually emits radiation, and the EHT's radiotelescopes measured this radiation.
They also photographed the black hole at the centre of a nearby galaxy called Messier 87.
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Are you excited to see a photograph of a black hole for the first time? Let us know in the comments...
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