“There’s something about this that’s so black, it’s like how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.”
Joey, have you ever seen a singularity naked?
Also keep in mind that the apparent size of the black hole shadow in that image is larger than the actual black hole itself (by which I mean the event horizon sphere) by a factor of around 2.5 to 2.6 times. This is due to the fact that light that comes within that range is deflected enough to not head our way, and in fact it’s mostly orbited down to eventually pass the event horizon - in which case it certainly won’t ever reach us.
I’m impressed that we’ve shot something out so far away from Pluto; and that in a few short years we’ve sent something out and can still detect it at a distance of the radius of such a massive black hole.
Reported (Amandamiller)
Science has chosen this as the Breakthrough of the Year: