APEX offers up-close view of black hole's event horizon
May 25 (UPI) -- Astronomers are trying to take a picture of the shadow of a black hole, and they're getting closer thanks to the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment radio telescope, also known as APEX. Five years ago, astronomers outfitted APEX with the equipment needed to be integrated into a global network of antennas known as Event Horizon Telescope. The addition of APEX allowed EHT to collect the most detailed observations yet of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. More specifically, the collective of telescopes was able to zoom in on the black hole's event horizon, the point of no return -- where the gravitational pull of the black hole becomes stronger than the speed of light and beyond, which no matter or particle can escape. The Event Hori...