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First Image of Supermassive Black Hole M87. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.

Focus on the First Event Horizon Telescope Results

April 10, 2019

Focus on the First Event Horizon Telescope Results

Shep Doeleman (EHT Director) on behalf of the EHT Collaboration

April 2019

 

We report the first image of a black hole.

This Focus Issue shows ultra-high angular resolution images of radio emission from the supermassive black hole believed to lie at the heart of galaxy M87 (Figure 1). A defining feature of the images is an irregular but clear bright ring, whose size and shape agree closely with the expected lensed photon orbit of a 6.5 billion solar mass black hole. Soon after...

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First Image of Supermassive Black Hole M87. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.

Astronomers Capture First Image of a Black Hole: An international collaboration presents paradigm-shifting observations of the gargantuan black hole at the heart of distant galaxy Messier 87

April 10, 2019

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

This breakthrough was announced today in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87 [1...

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simulation of black hole image

Lifting the veil on the heart of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy.

January 21, 2019

Cambridge, MA--A black hole four million times as massive as our Sun lurks at the center of the Milky Way. This black hole, called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), swallows nearby material that glows brightly as it approaches the event horizon. This galactic furnace is key to understanding black holes, but our view of it is obscured by lumpy clouds of electrons throughout the Galaxy. These clouds stretch, blur, and crinkle the image of Sgr A*, making it appear as though the black hole is blocked by an enormous sheet of frosted glass. 

Now, a team of astronomers, led by Radboud...

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SXSW Conference & Festivals, March 8-17, 2019.

EHT Panel Selected for SXSW in March 2019

January 1, 2019

Predicted almost a century ago by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, black holes not only exist, but actually power some of the most extreme phenomena in the Universe. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a global effort to construct an Earth-sized virtual telescope array, able to actually “photograph” nearby supermassive black holes. It had its first full run in April 2017, and will announce results in 2019. Join EHT project director and project scientist (Doeleman, Psaltis), EHT science council astrophysicist (Markoff), and author/filmmaker (Galison) as they discuss the expected...

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Image of the EHT network.

2019 Science Breakthrough of the Year: Imaging the Event Horizon

December 11, 2018

With every year that goes by, the total amount of knowledge that humanity accumulates only grows and grows. At the start of 2015, humanity had never detected a gravitational wave; at present, we've detected 11, and full expect to find perhaps hundreds more in 2019. In the early 1990s, we didn't know whether there were any planets outside our own Solar System; today, we have thousands, some of which are almost good enough to be considered Earth-like. 

We've found all the particles in the Standard Model; we've discovered that the Universe is not only expanding,...

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Illustration of Black Hole

How Do You Take a Picture of a Black Hole? With a Telescope as Big as the Earth

October 4, 2018

We live 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way. That’s a rounding error by cosmological standards, but still — it’s far. When the light now reaching Earth from the galactic center first took flight, people were crossing the Bering Strait land bridge, hunting woolly mammoths along the way.

The distance hasn’t stopped astronomers from drawing a fairly accurate map of the heart of the galaxy. We know that if you travel inbound from Earth at the speed of light for about 20,000 years, you’ll encounter the galactic bulge, a peanut-shaped structure thick with stars, some...

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Simulated image of a black hole

Event Horizon Telescope ready to image black hole

February 16, 2017

They have built an Earth-sized "virtual telescope" by linking a large array of radio receivers - from the South Pole, to Hawaii, to the Americas and Europe.

There is optimism that observations to be conducted during 5-14 April could finally deliver the long-sought prize.

In the sights of the so-called "Event Horizon Telescope" will be the monster black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

Article continues https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38937141 
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Black hole cartoon

Globe-spanning telescope array glimpses magnetic field around Milky Way’s black hole

December 3, 2015

"A wide-ranging array of radio dishes trained on the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy has revealed a glimpse of the magnetic field close to the Milky Way’s dark heart. The results could help explain why black holes, although not emitting any light themselves, are able to make the churning gas and dust around them shine with the brightness of thousands of stars."

Read More Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/12/globe-spanning-telescope-array-glimpses-magnetic-field-around-milky-way-s-black-hole

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