What does a black hole look like?

I can not wait to find out!! Tomorrow, first ever image of the black hole (technically, the gas and dust around the black hole, hence the "silhouette") 

This black hole is Sgr A*, mass of about 4e6 times the Sun



https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/blackholes/

Press release starts tomorrow 9:00 am EST

Screenshot-from-2019-04-09-18-14-43
«1

Comments

  • Goes without saying doesn't it?
  • I'm an astronomy nerd so i am very excited for this as well.
  • Well hopefully my keys are in it, cant find them anywhere
  • Originally posted by: empire

    Well hopefully my keys are in it, cant find them anywhere





    Sure about that? If they are inside the Schwarzschild radius, you are not getting them back!
  • It's live-streaming now, and they just showed the photo! Gave me chills.
  • Originally posted by: coffeewithmrsaturn

    It's live-streaming now, and they just showed the photo! Gave me chills.




    Link?

    Black holes are black, so we know what they "look" like. We'll only be seeing the accretion disc, hopefully confirming the physics behind them.

  • Originally posted by: dra600n




    Originally posted by: coffeewithmrsaturn



    It's live-streaming now, and they just showed the photo! Gave me chills.







    Link? Black holes are black, so we know what they "look" like. We'll only be seeing the accretion disc, hopefully confirming the physics behind them.



    see first post of thread


  • Originally posted by: coffeewithmrsaturn


    Originally posted by: dra600n




    Originally posted by: coffeewithmrsaturn



    It's live-streaming now, and they just showed the photo! Gave me chills.







    Link? Black holes are black, so we know what they "look" like. We'll only be seeing the accretion disc, hopefully confirming the physics behind them.



    see first post of thread






    D'oh! Thanks  
  • Originally posted by: Every1whocountsluvsNedFlanders



    Goes without saying doesn't it?





    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_OCa8wSg8g





     
  • This is in M87. It's a few billion times the mass of the Sun

    Screenshot-from-2019-04-10-10-15-06
  • Originally posted by: avatar!



    This is in M87. It's a few billion times the mass of the Sun Screenshot-from-2019-04-10-10-15-06



    Doesn't LOOK so big! Pffff.

     
  • Originally posted by: avatar!

    This is in M87. It's a few billion times the mass of the Sun

    https://postimg.cc/Snk0v1bH...' target='_blank'>Screenshot-from-2019-04-10-10-15-06




    It's about 2000 times the size of Sag A*, which is how we can image it like it's in our own galaxy. M87 dwarfs the MW, fwiw
  • Tried quoting above, and it messed up... :/



    try again: okay, Sgr A* (not Sag A* - yeah I'm a scientist, we're annoying like that  

    is 4e6 and M87 BH is about 4e9 and since it's a linear relationship the size of the Schwarzchild radius is roughly 1000 times larger which is why the first image is M87 and not our own SMBH
  • Black hole, yeah right, looks pretty orange to me
  • Originally posted by: avatar!

     
    Tried quoting above, and it messed up... :/



    try again: okay, Sgr A* (not Sag A* - yeah I'm a scientist, we're annoying like that  

    is 4e6 and M87 BH is about 4e9 and since it's a linear relationship the size of the Schwarzchild radius is roughly 1000 times larger which is why the first image is M87 and not our own SMBH




    You can be pedantic and abbreviate Sagittarius however you like
  • Neat how they get that data. And also neat that there's so much of it that putting HDs on a plane is way faster than trying to transfer it over a wire lol.
  • Originally posted by: dra600n

     
    Originally posted by: avatar!

     
    Tried quoting above, and it messed up... :/



    try again: okay, Sgr A* (not Sag A* - yeah I'm a scientist, we're annoying like that  

    is 4e6 and M87 BH is about 4e9 and since it's a linear relationship the size of the Schwarzchild radius is roughly 1000 times larger which is why the first image is M87 and not our own SMBH




    You can be pedantic and abbreviate Sagittarius however you like
  • Don't get into scientific debate on forums, folks, someone always knows like a gazillion times more than you or your feeble mind can even dare to contend with. These people are angry at your bro-science/lack of a Master's Degree and will NOT hear of it. Seriously, you all know nothing. Not compared to ME, anyways! *breaths on knuckles, dusts knuckles off on shirt*
  • That's cool
  • Originally posted by: Quaze



    Don't get into scientific debate on forums, folks, someone always knows like a gazillion times more than you or your feeble mind can even dare to contend with. These people are angry at your bro-science/lack of a Master's Degree and will NOT hear of it. Seriously, you all know nothing. Not compared to ME, anyways! *breaths on knuckles, dusts knuckles off on shirt*



    It’s only a debate when actual debating is going on - not being annoyingly pedantic over an abbreviation. This is just typical Avatar and his nonsense that he brings in every thread he posts about. 

     
  • Look who else is excited about going to see a hole!  



  • My friend works with Jesus and he calls bullshit on science, especially black holes.
  • Yea right, those 16 bit graphics suck. Hail flat earth!
  • I watched it from my phone on my lunch break, I was a bit disappointed when they finally unveiled it...







    Funny how in this cosmic event, software on my phone could impede an entire black hole.  I guess Red Dwarf was right, it's a white hole.
  • Came here for a yo momma joke, am dissapoint
  • Amazing how close the actual image is to simulations

    Screenshot-from-2019-04-10-10-16-46
  • If isn't black, and look like a hole, I'll be pissed.
  • Originally posted by: empire



    Black hole, yeah right, looks pretty orange to me





    looks like Soundgarden was right afterall.
  • Bonkers that it's so far away but we can "image" it like this. (or at least assign a color scale to the different wavelengths. Not like this is a photograph of what it "looks" like) Who knows what kind of cool stuff is visible to us, if we went to the effort to image it.



    Pretty crazy that the Earth was big enough to make this work. If we had had to use another receiver on the Moon or something, it would have required a lot more processing, possibly making it prohibitive. No wonder they needed atomic clocks.



    But maybe I don't understand how they put the image together? The explanation of each radio receiver filling in "points" of the image and being able to "see" different "points" and then filling in the gaps "using algorithms" doesn't make any sense. It would make sense if each radio receiver were actually a telescope, but since we can only call it a telescope when we correlate the data from each receiver all together, the idea of piecing together individual points and needing algorithms to do the rest sounds like public-facing fluff talk. Brb, reading the wikipedia page for Interferometry.
  • Originally posted by: Splain



    Bonkers that it's so far away but we can "image" it like this. (or at least assign a color scale to the different wavelengths. Not like this is a photograph of what it "looks" like) Who knows what kind of cool stuff is visible to us, if we went to the effort to image it.



    Pretty crazy that the Earth was big enough to make this work. If we had had to use another receiver on the Moon or something, it would have required a lot more processing, possibly making it prohibitive. No wonder they needed atomic clocks.



    But maybe I don't understand how they put the image together? The explanation of each radio receiver filling in "points" of the image and being able to "see" different "points" and then filling in the gaps "using algorithms" doesn't make any sense. It would make sense if each radio receiver were actually a telescope, but since we can only call it a telescope when we correlate the data from each receiver all together, the idea of piecing together individual points and needing algorithms to do the rest sounds like public-facing fluff talk. Brb, reading the wikipedia page for Interferometry.

    Interferometry is crazy difficult stuff. What I can say is that light hits the telescopes (radio dishes) as a wave. It hits one dish, then the next, then the next...

    If (and only if) they know the exact distances between the waves and the timing, they can "fill in" (using math basically) what the wave should look like. All that analysis is very difficult, especially since they're using so many dishes. By the way, they are building more, and yes they're talking about having some in space, which would greatly increase the resolution. So, maybe in the next decade we'll move from 16-bit graphic BHs to 32-bit  



     
Sign In or Register to comment.