The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, called EHT, is a global network of telescopes that captured the first-ever photograph of a black hole. More than 200 researchers were involved in the project. They have worked for more than a decade to capture this. The project is named for the event horizon, the proposed boundary around a black hole that represents the point of no return where no light or radiation can escape.
In their attempt to capture an image of a black hole, scientists combined the power of eight radio telescopes around the world using Very-Long-Baseline-Interferometry, according to the European Southern Observatory, which is part of the EHT. This effectively creates a virtual telescope around the same size as the Earth itself.
First Photo of a Black Hole
- CardsofSTL
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First Photo of a Black Hole
This is the first photo of a black hole
- CardsofSTL
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- wart57
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- GeddyWrox
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Re: First Photo of a Black Hole
Jokes and memes aside, this is... a really BFD.
(sorry, science fanboy here)
OK, carry on with the merry-making and whatnot.
(sorry, science fanboy here)
OK, carry on with the merry-making and whatnot.
- CardsofSTL
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Re: First Photo of a Black Hole
It's really cool... No problem mixing irreverence with science discussions. I like reading about space discoveries... I'm pissed we don't have transporters yet.
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Re: First Photo of a Black Hole
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bla ... idJ6lAio0IThe image also provides a new measurement of the black hole’s size and heft. “Our mass determination by just directly looking at the shadow has helped resolve a longstanding controversy,” Sera Markoff, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam, said in the Washington, D.C., news conference. Estimates made using different techniques have ranged between 3.5 billion and 7.22 billion times the mass of the sun. But the new EHT measurements show that its mass is about 6.5 billion solar masses.
The team has also determined the behemoth’s size — its diameter stretches 38 billion kilometers — and that the black hole spins clockwise. “M87 is a monster even by supermassive black hole standards,” Markoff said.
EHT trained its sights on both M87’s black hole and Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. But, it turns out, it was easier to image M87’s monster. That black hole is 55 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo, about 2,000 times as far as Sgr A*. But it’s also about 1,000 times as massive as the Milky Way’s giant, which weighs the equivalent of roughly 4 million suns. That extra heft nearly balances out M87’s distance. “The size in the sky is pretty darn similar,” says EHT team member Feryal Özel.
Due to its gravitational oomph, gases swirling around M87’s black hole move and vary in brightness more slowly than they do around the Milky Way’s. “During a single observation, Sgr A* doesn’t sit still, whereas M87 does,” says Özel, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Just based on this ‘Does the black hole sit still and pose for me?’ point of view, we knew M87 would cooperate more.”
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Re: First Photo of a Black Hole
When I see CardsofSTL post a topic about a photo of a black hole...I’ll just say this not what I was expecting
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Re: First Photo of a Black Hole
Trying to get a handle on these numbers. 38 billion kilometers would mean this thing is much bigger than our solar system (Pluto orbits a maximum of 7.4 billion km from the sun).pioneer98 wrote:The image also provides a new measurement of the black hole’s size and heft. “Our mass determination by just directly looking at the shadow has helped resolve a longstanding controversy,” Sera Markoff, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam, said in the Washington, D.C., news conference. Estimates made using different techniques have ranged between 3.5 billion and 7.22 billion times the mass of the sun. But the new EHT measurements show that its mass is about 6.5 billion solar masses.
The team has also determined the behemoth’s size — its diameter stretches 38 billion kilometers — and that the black hole spins clockwise. “M87 is a monster even by supermassive black hole standards,” Markoff said.
Oddly, because it is so big, the average density is really quite low -- close to something like ordinary water. Apparently this also means, that tidal forces at the event horizon are not that large. With small black holes you get spaghettified before falling in, but with big ones you'd survive just fine. There's no way to ever escape or send any message out after crossing, but apparently, you can enter, at least, quite comfortably.
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