Astronomers and physicists will convene in Tucson, Arizona to discuss plans to photograph the black hole lying in the center of the galaxy.

The Event Horizon Telescope Project is a global network of 50 radio telescopes that will join together into one big observing instrument that can produce an unmatched picture of the region containing the Milky Way's central black hole.

"What is great about the [black hole] in the center of the Milky Way is that [it is] big enough and close enough," explains astronomer Dan Marrone, who co-organized the international meeting with astrophysicist Dimitrios Psaltis. "There are bigger ones in other galaxies, and there are closer ones, but they're smaller. Ours is just the right combination of size and distance."

Black holes are objects that have massive gravitational pulls that not even light can escape from their boundaries. Although there are a lot that astronomers know about black holes, no one has been able to capture an image of a black hole. There are many black holes in the galaxy but they're small and could absorb light making it difficult to get one on frame. The black hole at the center of the Milky Way has a mass of 4 million suns and astronomers have determined its location by charting its gravitational effects and it could be big enough to be visible.

While the black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy is the best candidate for a photo shoot, it doesn't mean that scientists will have an easier time getting a picture of it. The Event Horizon Telescope team is looking for the ring of matter that surrounds the black hole and astronomers will be looking for it from 26,000 light years away. Spotting the silhouette of the black hole's event horizon would be as challenging as spotting a grapefruit on the moon, according to a University of Arizona news release.

"To see something that small and that far away, you need a very big telescope, and the biggest telescope you can make on Earth is to turn the whole planet into a telescope," Marrone said.

The conference in Tucson will be a chance for astronomers to coordinate the 50 radio telescopes scattered across the planet to focus on their target: the black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The EHT team has already conducted a preliminary scan with just three networked radio telescopes which determined that there is an object in the target region. The team estimates that the project will be completed in the next three or four years and the world will soon see the black hole in the center of our galaxy.