Released the first ever picture of a black hole today.

National science foundation researchers actually took the photo two years ago.

This one is at the center of a galaxy called m-87 -- about 54 million light years away.

To get the image, scientists combined the power of eight radio telescopes that are part of the event horizon telescope collaboration.

That involved creating a virtual telescope -- which in physical form, would be around the size of earth.

Dr. joshua hamblen: "it is a new way to study them.

You know, to date, we've only been able to study black holes indirectly based on the matter that is near a black hole and the rotation of a galaxy around a super massive black hole.

So for scientistics it's essentially the first kind of direct observation of a black hole and it's a very exciting time."

If you're interested in astronomy and learning more about black holes, you can go to utc's free observatory night every