The first ever image of a black hole has been revealed by scientists.
The groundbreaking picture shows the curved hot edges of the event horizon - where light is bent by huge gravitational forces.
It is the first time a supermassive black hole has been captured in a photograph.
Unveiling the image, Event Horizon Telescope project director Sheperd Doeleman said: “We have seen what we thought was unseeable. We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole. Here it is."
"“We are giving humanity its first view of a black hole - a one-way door out of our universe.
“This is a landmark in astronomy, an unprecedented scientific feat accomplished by a team of more than 200 researchers.”
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The image, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, was revealed at simultaneous press conferences which took place around the world.
It shows a flaming orange, yellow and black ring, with a dark centre.
The world first comes despite black holes' existence long being confirmed - they were theorized by Albert Einstein more than a century ago.
It is thought that a supermassive black hole is at the centre of every galaxy, although their origin is still shrouded in mystery.
Incredibly dense objects, their gravitational pull is so strong that not even light can escape.
The “event horizon” of the black hole pictured - the point where nothing can escape its grasp - is said to be as large as our entire solar system.
In the image, gas and dust circling the object can be seen.
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The picture was taken over four days and required perfect weather and literally all the stars had to align.
Jessica Dempsey, a co-discoverer and deputy director of the East Asian Observatory in Hawaii, said that when she first saw the image, it reminded her of the powerful flaming Eye of Sauron from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
She said: “It’s circular, but on one side the light is brighter,” she said. "That’s because that light is approaching Earth."
Ms Dempsey added the image helped confirm Einstein’s general relativity theory, and the symmetrical shape he predicted.
The Event Horizon Telescope collected the data two years ago, but 200 scientists, supercomputers and hundreds of terabytes of data were needed to create the image seen.
The photo was obtained by combining eight radio dishes around the world into one global telescope.
Colour has been added to the image as it was taken at a wavelength of light invisible to the human eye.
