Light in the Darkness

In April 2019, about four billion people around the world were able to see the first-ever image of a black hole (55 million light-years from Earth, the center of the galaxy M87). Heino Falcke, who led the international team of researchers, and science journalist Jörg Römer wrote a book about what preceded the birth of this image. Readers of “Light in the Darkness” will learn how a group of enthusiastic scientists first convinced resource distributors (money, radio telescopes, powerful computers) to allocate sufficient amounts for the proposed project, then conducted observations, analyzed data, and obtained the long-awaited image. “The mythical creature of cosmic size took on form and color, and every person was able to see it,” Falcke summarizes. He worked on this project for over twenty years, and as a believing Christian, a lay pastor, he was not frightened that many refer to black holes as “gates of hell,” for the goal of science is to push the boundaries of the unknown.