![]() When you pick up a bowling ball, it’s heavy because the matter is densely packed. What do scientists still not know about black holes?īlack holes are made of matter packed so tightly that gravity overwhelms all other forces.How was the first picture of a black hole taken?.What do black holes tell us about the universe?.NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce contributed to this report. He added, "This makes us confident about the interpretation of our observations, including our estimation of the black hole's mass." Ho, EHT board member and director of the East Asian Observatory. Many of the features of the observed image match our theoretical understanding surprisingly well," said Paul T.P. ![]() "Once we were sure we had imaged the shadow, we could compare our observations to extensive computer models that include the physics of warped space, superheated matter and strong magnetic fields. Magnetic fields act to brake the rotation of the black hole and transfer its rotational energy to the jet."Īs they analyzed the image and related data, astronomers also grew increasingly confident with other assumptions they've made based on theories about the workings of the universe. Our simulations, which are based on the motion of magnetic fields and hot gas near the black hole, showed that the jets are powered by the black hole itself. In a news release about the breakthrough, Gammie said: "One of the great mysteries in astronomy has been how such jets are launched. When they compared the images, researchers found that all of them depicted a "ring" around the black hole that was roughly the same diameter, with a brighter segment in its southern arc. To ensure the final image's validity, the EHT project used a "blind" process, assigning four teams to spend seven weeks working independently to create an image based on data about the M87 black hole that was collected on April 11. Some of that work took place in Massachusetts, at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, where computer scientist Katie Bouman "led the creation of a new algorithm to produce the first-ever image of a black hole," the lab said Wednesday.īouman, who was a graduate student when she began working on the project, gave a TEDx Talk in late 2016 in which she discussed the challenge of using algorithms to "piece together pictures from the sparse, noisy data" from telescopes - without, she added, biasing the system to gravitate toward what scientists might expect a black hole to look like. (image credit #EHTblackhole #BlackHoleDay #BlackHole /Iv5PIc8IYd- MIT CSAIL April 10, 2019 Right: MIT computer scientist Margaret Hamilton w/the code she wrote that helped put a man on the moon. Left: MIT computer scientist Katie Bouman w/stacks of hard drives of black hole image data. And this is precious to all of us, because this one is finally real." "But they were all simulations or animations. "You have probably seen many, many images of black holes before," said Heino Falcke, a professor in the Netherlands who chairs the EHT Science Council. ![]() From that data came the image that was released Wednesday.Ĭórdova and Doeleman led a news conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss the team's finding, in an synchronized process that took place simultaneously on four continents, as researchers held press conferences to share news of what they're calling "a groundbreaking result." Finally, in April of 2017, he said, "all of the dishes in the Event Horizon Telescope swiveled, turned and stared" at the core of M87. ![]() The breakthrough, Doeleman said, came after a decade of work to align the myriad working parts of the project and gain the highest resolution possible from the Earth's surface. Researchers at the Event Horizon Telescope project say they were able to create an image of a black hole by using a network of eight radio telescopes to create "a virtual telescope dish as large as the Earth itself," the National Science Foundation says. We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole," said EHT Director Shep Doeleman of Harvard University. "We are delighted to be able to report to you today that we have seen what we thought was unseeable. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |