Black Holes and Revelations - Supporting the Capture of the World’s First Image of a Black Hole

Earlier this year you may have been one of the millions of people to have seen the very first picture of a black hole. Albert Einstein first predicted the existence of black holes in 1916, with his general theory of relativity.

Because no light can escape, scientists haven’t been able to view black holes in the same way that we see stars and other objects in space. But astronomers have at last captured an image of the  phenomenon.

The image, which looks like a donut of light surrounding a black centre, is of a black hole located 55 million light-years from Earth in a galaxy known as Messier 87, and was taken with the help of one of our manufacturing partners, Conduant.

Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

"The data used to generate the image was recorded on storage systems made by Conduant. The systems recorded signals from giant telescopes in real time with multiple radio antennas spaced across the globe", said Ken Owens, co-founder and CEO of the company.


Each antenna, fitted with atomic clocks, made a simultaneous time-stamped recording of the radiations from the black hole region analyzed later by super computers to form an actual image. The data had to be recorded in real time.

“Our systems are similar to standard IT storage systems. But our technology is about control systems and data movement from antennas to storage devices,” Owens said.

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About Conduant

In environments where large volumes of raw, high-speed data are generated (radio astronomy, high-resolution video imaging, radar surveillance) the StreamStor® product line from Conduant excels at error-free recording and playback. Unlike traditional tape-based systems or general purpose disk storage, Conduant’s ultra-fast digital data recorders and storage units ensure reliable, guaranteed and sustained performance, unparalleled in the industry.