EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE COLLABORATION / MAUNAKEA OBSERVATORIES
This image released on April 10 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.
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Two Mauna Kea telescopes have won a share of a $3 million prize for the world’s first image of a supermassive black hole.
The 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded Thursday, the University of Hawaii announced.
The black hole, discovered in April 2017, was named Powehi, which means embellished dark source of unending creation.
The Breakthrough Prize, known as the “Oscars of Science,” was awarded to the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. The observational campaign brought together eight telescopes at six locations around the globe, including Hawaii-based James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and Submillimeter Array and dozens of local astronomy professionals who played a key role in the discovery.
The 30 awardees from the Maxwell telescope and Submillimeter Array represent a mix of scientists, technicians, engineers and operators.
The award also reinforces a new path that fuses science and culture, with the help of experts like UH-Hilo Hawaiian language professor and cultural practitioner Larry Kimura. Astronomers collaborated with Kimura for the naming Powehi, whose name comes from the Kumulipo, the primordial chant describing the creation of the Hawaiian universe.