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Author Topic:   Black Hole image captured for first time
Diomedes
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Posts: 995
From: Central Florida, USA
Joined: 09-13-2013


(2)
Message 1 of 6 (850540)
04-10-2019 10:52 AM


The first actual picture of a Black Hole has been made:
It's a super massive black hole from the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy.
Pretty cool to actually finally see one actually captured by telescopes.

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Tanypteryx
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Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


(1)
Message 2 of 6 (850544)
04-10-2019 12:01 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Diomedes
04-10-2019 10:52 AM


Pretty cool to actually finally see one actually captured by telescopes.
Pretty cool indeed. The Event Horizon Telescope Array is a network of radio telescopes across the Earth that has the angular resolution of a telescope the size of the Earth.
Breaking: The Very First Image Of A Black Hole
quote:
To achieve the resolution of the black hole’s event horizon, the team needed an enormous, powerful telescope, one with 2,000 times the magnifying power of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Event Horizon Telescope is actually a network of eight radio dishes dotting the globe in high altitude sites, from the South Pole to Atacama, Chile, that together creates a virtual telescope the size of the planet Earth, explained —zel.
The team set the telescope array to 1.3 millimeter wavelengths. The short radio wavelengths were the perfect wavelength to pass through the gas that obstructs the shadow of the black hole, while giving the highest resolution possible. “At [other] wavelengths there’s just too much light there,” —zel said. This “obscures the blackness that you’re trying to see there.”

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq

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 Message 1 by Diomedes, posted 04-10-2019 10:52 AM Diomedes has not replied

  
AZPaul3
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Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 3 of 6 (850576)
04-10-2019 3:45 PM


They also imaged Sagittarius A*.
That's the one I want to see.

Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.

  
AZPaul3
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Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 4 of 6 (850582)
04-10-2019 4:34 PM


This is simply amazing.
This shows three graphics side-by-side.
Rotating Earth showing the position of each telescope used in the array as each passed through the data window
A graph of the incoming data as seen by each scope
Not the real image (which hasn't been released yet) but a simulation of what they expect to see of SagA*
Lots of hype about once again showing Einstein right. Was that really in doubt? Seriously?
What this should really hype is that our technology is getting really fuckin' good.
Hell, we got telescopes the size of planets!
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.

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Tanypteryx
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Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


(2)
Message 5 of 6 (850584)
04-10-2019 5:17 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by AZPaul3
04-10-2019 4:34 PM


What this should really hype is that our technology is getting really fuckin' good.
Hell, we got telescopes the size of planets!
Yep, and not just the telescope.
A method to image black holes,
New algorithm could stitch together astronomical measurements made across the globe.
quote:
Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the MIT Haystack Observatory have developed a new algorithm that could help astronomers produce the first image of a black hole.
quote:
“Radio wavelengths come with a lot of advantages,” says Katie Bouman, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, who led the development of the new algorithm. “Just like how radio frequencies will go through walls, they pierce through galactic dust. We would never be able to see into the center of our galaxy in visible wavelengths because there’s too much stuff in between.”

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by AZPaul3, posted 04-10-2019 4:34 PM AZPaul3 has seen this message but not replied

  
Tanypteryx
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Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


(5)
Message 6 of 6 (850661)
04-11-2019 2:07 PM


10 Deep Lessons From Our First Image Of A Black Hole's Event Horizon
10 Deep Lessons From Our First Image Of A Black Hole's Event Horizon
quote:
1. This really is a black hole, as predicted by General Relativity. If you've ever seen an article with a title like, "theorist boldly claims that black holes don't exist" or "this new theory of gravity could upend Einstein," you've likely pieced together that physicists have no problem dreaming up alternative theories to the mainstream. Even though General Relativity has passed every test we've thrown at it, there are no shortage of extensions, substitutes, or possible replacements.
Well, this observation rules a bunch of them out. We now know this is a black hole and not a wormhole, at least for the most mainstream class of wormhole models. We know there's a real event horizon and not a naked singularity, at least for many general classes of naked singularities. We know that the event horizon isn't a hard surface, as the infalling matter would have generated an infrared signature. This is, to the limits of the observations we've made, consistent with General Relativity.
quote:
2. Gravitational dynamics of stars give good estimates for black hole masses; observations of gas do not. Prior to the Event Horizon Telescope's first image, we had a number of different ways of measuring the masses of black holes. We could either use measurements of stars ” such as the individual orbits of stars around the black hole in our own galaxy or the absorption lines of stars in M87 ” which give us a gravitational mass, or emissions from the gas in motion around the central black hole.
quote:
3. This has to be a rotating black hole, and its rotation axis happens to point away from Earth. With observations of the event horizon, the radio emissions surrounding it, the large-scale jet, and the extended radio emissions that were measured previously by other observatories, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration has determined that this must be a Kerr (rotating) and not a Schwarzschild (non-rotating) black hole.
There's no one simple feature we can look at to tease out this nature. Rather, we have to construct dazzling models of the black hole itself and the matter outside of it, and then evolve them to see what occurs. When you look at the various signals that could emerge, you gain the ability to constrain what's possibly consistent with your results. The black hole must be rotating, and the rotational axis points away from Earth at about 17 degrees.
quote:
4. We were able to definitively determine that there is matter, consistent with accretion disks and flows, around the black hole. We already knew that M87 had a jet from the optical observations, and that it also emitted radio waves and X-rays. You can't really get that type of radiation from stars or photons alone; you need matter, and electrons in particular. Only by accelerating electrons in a magnetic field can you get the characteristic radio emission that we've seen: synchrotron radiation.
quote:
5. The visible ring indicates the strength of gravity and gravitational lensing around the central black hole; again, General Relativity passes the test. That ring of radio doesn't correspond to the event horizon itself, nor does it correspond to either a ring of orbiting particles. It isn't the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) of the black hole, either. Instead, this ring arises from a sphere of gravitationally lensed photons, which are bent by the gravity of the black hole before traveling to our eyes.
quote:
6. Black holes are dynamic entities, and the radiation emitted from them changes over time. With a reconstructed mass of 6.5 billion solar masses, it takes roughly a day for light to travel across the black hole's event horizon. This roughly sets the timescale over which we expect to see features change and fluctuate in the radiation observed by the Event Horizon Telescope.
quote:
7. The Event Horizon Telescope will, in the future, reveal the physical origin of black hole flares. We've seen, in both X-ray and radio, the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way emit transient bursts of radiation. Although the very first image released was of the ultramassive black hole in M87, the one in our galaxy ” Sagittarius A* ” will be just as large, but will change on much faster timescales.
quote:
8. Polarization data is coming, and will reveal whether black holes have an intrinsic magnetic field. While we've all certainly been enjoying the first image of a black hole's event horizon, it's important to appreciate that an entirely new image is on its way: one that illustrates the polarization of light coming from the black hole. Because of the electromagnetic nature of light, its interaction with a magnetic field will imprint a specific polarization signature onto it, enabling us to reconstruct the magnetic field of a black hole, as well as how that field changes over time.
quote:
9. Instrumentation improvements to the Event Horizon Telescope will reveal the presence of additional black holes near galactic centers. When a planet orbits the Sun, it isn't just because the Sun exerts a gravitational pull on the planet. Instead, there's an equal and opposite reaction: the planet pulls back on the Sun. Similarly, when an object orbits a black hole, it also exerts a gravitational pull on the black hole itself. With a whole slew of masses near the centers of galaxies ” and, in theory, many small, unseen black holes are present, too ” the central black hole should experience a Brownian motion-like jitter to its position.
quote:
10. Finally, the Event Horizon Telescope may eventually see hundreds of black holes. In order to resolve a black hole, you need your telescope array's resolving power to be better (i.e., to have higher resolution) than the size of the object you're looking at. For the current Event Horizon Telescope, only three known black holes in the Universe have a large enough diameter: Sagittarius A*, the center of M87, and the center of the (radio-quiet) galaxy NGC 1277.
This article has a bunch more interesting information.

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq

  
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