Very few people are aware of the fact that the Black Hole's photograph was not taken by a traditional camera with optical lenses! No, there was no "Clitchuk" sound and flash when they produced the image. The Black Hole's image consists of the measurements of the radio waves emitted by the Black Hole. These measurements were taken from numerous locations, using several ground-based radio telescopes known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The measurements from all locations were combined and converted into the visual that we all know as the Black Hole's first image. This image is being circulated all over the internet since a month.

Unknown or rather indifferent to the elaborate process of the genesis of the Black Hole's image, a Chinese company, Visual China Group (VCG), claimed copyright ownership to this "photo-graph".

This image of the Black Hole, released by the European Southern Observatory on April 10th, 2019 was released for free distribution via the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Unknown to this also, the VCG listed image for sale with its own watermark running across the image. Chinese authorities have now ordered take-down of this image by the VCG. The Company was later reported to have issued an apology letter citing lack of oversight over the uploaded content.

The image below is only used for representational/ educational purposes and we Obviously do not claim any copyright in the same.

Compiled by: Adv. Sachi Kapoor | Concept & Edited by: Dr. Mohan Dewan

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