Austrian Mint’s Black Hole Coin Wins COTY for 2022-dated Coins
The Austrian Mint took home the Coin of the Year Award (COTY) for 2022-dated coins with its innovative Black Hole coin. The coin was honored at the 40th COTY awards ceremony, which was the first held after a three-year break due to the COVID pandemic.
The “Black Hole” coin is the second coin in the Austrian Mint’s Uncharted Universe series. The first coin in the “unchartered universe” series won the COTY “Most Innovative” category for coins dated 2021.
“Black Hole “is concave on one side and convex on the other, representing the unique funnel shape of these regions of space-time where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape from them. As described by the Austrian Mint:
Although storing vast amounts of energy, black holes do not emit light. For this reason, the first photograph of a black hole was not published until 2019 and, even then, only as an indirect image of the shadow it casts. No wonder that so much remains unclear about black holes. Among the most complex objects possible in our or any other universe, they are not only a challenge experimentally but also raise a multitude of fundamental questions about space and time.
The award-winning coin was designed by Mag. Helmut Andexlinger. On the obverse, a cone rises from the flat silver surface, representing the curvature of space-time. “Cygnus X-1,” the first named black hole, is written to the right under ‘15 M☉’, the solar mass of this black hole. Written in German, “Event horizon” marks the boundary between the observable and the unobservable in space-time, while “Singularity” points to the location of maximum space-time curvature.
On the reverse, a funnel shape illustrates a black hole vortex, accompanied by a color-printed spiral. It also includes the inscription “Schwarzes Loch,” German for Black Hole.
The 20 EURO non-circulating coin weighs 22.42 grams and measures 34 mm in diameter. Mintage is limited to 30,000 pieces.