In 1915, Albert Einstein predicted the black holes as a part of his theory of relativity. In 1967, the term black hole was adopted by a physician from Cornwall University. On Wednesday, the world got to see an image of this phenomenon. For decades, scientists have been studying these massive, lightless stars in the galaxy.

On Wednesday morning, a press conference was held in Washington D.C to reveal the first picture of the lightless hole. When the image was placed on the screen, the crowd erupted in cheers and applause.

Katie Bouman, a 29 year old computer scientist, led the three-year project assisted by a scientific and mathematic team comprised of scholars from MIT and Harvard. “When we saw it for the first time, we were all in disbelief,” she told BBC. “It was quite spectacular.” Dr. Bouman was credited by MIT and the Smithsonian on social media, when a statement was released regarding her scientific advancement: “3 years ago MIT grad student Katie Bouman led the creation of a new algorithm to produce the first-ever image of a black hole. Today, that image was released.” However, Dr Bouman–now an assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology–insisted that her team was equally responsible for the work done, and deserves equal credit.

According to The New York Times, “To capture the image, astronomers reached across intergalactic space to Messier 87, or M87, a giant galaxy in the constellation Virgo. There, a black hole several billion times more massive than the sun is unleashing a violent jet of energy some 5,000 light-years into space.”

This image will be revolutionary in the history of astronomy as the first image of a black hole to be taken. The New York Times stated “’The images released today bolster the notion of violence perpetrated over cosmic scales,’ said Sera Markoff, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam, and a member of the Event Horizon team. ‘Black holes must be the most exotic major disruptors of cosmic order,’ she said.”

Black holes are the universe’s strongest force. All laws and rules of physics are broken from stars. They absorb light and anything else in their path. These are created when a star dies and collapses on itself.