Black hole named ‘Powehi’ by Hawaii university professor

This April 4, 2019, photo, provided by Maunakea Observatories shows the Submillimeter Array, part of the Event Horizon Telescope network on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Scientists on Wednesday, April 10, revealed the first image ever made of a black hole using these telescopes. (Maunakea Observatories via AP)

• Powehi, which means “the adorned fathomless dark creation”, comes from the Kumulipo, an 18th century Hawaiian creation chant
• A Hawaiian name was justified because the project included two Hawaii telescopes, astronomers said

HILO, Hawaii: A language professor has given a Hawaiian name — Powehi — to the black hole depicted in an image produced in a landmark experiment.
University of Hawaii-Hilo Hawaiian Professor Larry Kimura named the cosmic object, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Thursday.
The world’s first image of a black hole revealed Wednesday was created using data from eight radio telescopes around the world.
Powehi, which means “the adorned fathomless dark creation” or “embellished dark source of unending creation”, comes from the Kumulipo, an 18th century Hawaiian creation chant. Po is a profound dark source of unending creation, while wehi, honored with embellishments, is one of the chant’s descriptions of po, the newspaper reported.
“To have the privilege of giving a Hawaiian name to the very first scientific confirmation of a black hole is very meaningful to me and my Hawaiian lineage that comes from po,” Kimura said in a news release.
A Hawaiian name was justified because the project included two Hawaii telescopes, astronomers said.
“As soon as he said it, I nearly fell off my chair,” said Jessica Dempsey, deputy director of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea.
Dempsey was among 200 scientists who worked to capture an image of the massive black hole in the M87 galaxy nearly 54 million light-years from Earth, the newspaper reported.
Dempsey said Powehi is an excellent match for the scientific explanation provided to Kimura.
“We described what we had seen and that this black hole was illuminating and brightening the darkness around it, and that’s when he came up with the name,” she said.