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Virtual Telescope Zooms In On Milky Way Black Hole
FiReaNGeL writes "An international team has obtained the closest views ever of what is believed to be a super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The astronomers used radio dishes in Hawaii, Arizona and California to create a virtual telescope more than 2,800 miles across that is capable of seeing details more than 1,000 times finer than the Hubble Space Telescope. The target of the observations was the source known as Sagittarius A* ("A-star"), long thought to mark the position of a black hole whose mass is 4 million times greater than the sun. Though Sagittarius A* was discovered 30 years ago, the new observations for the first time have an angular resolution, or ability to observe small details, that is matched to the size of the event horizon."
Thats your basic Beowulf cluster of telescopes.
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"Hell, I don't see anything!"
An international team has obtained the closest views ever of what is believed to be a super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
*Zoom Out*... "Is that?.. It.. it.. it's Oprah eating a klondike bar. Sorry folks, our mistake."
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The milky way is our galaxy.
Also, 2 different brands of chocolate bar.
Deleted
"a virtual telescope more than 2,800 miles across that is capable of seeing details more than 1,000 times finer than the Hubble Space Telescope"
- ok, but HST is an optical telescope, not "radio dish".
Can we stop saying "virtual telescopes" and start using the proper grown up terms? Interferometry and Aperture Synthesis aren't hard to understand. It's a pet peeve of mine, and slashdotters should be of a level of intelligence that they can understand this stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_interferometer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_synthesis
Yes you get the same angular resolution as a much larger telescope (one as big as the distance between the telescopes), which is why you do it. However it's important to note that you you don't increase the amount of radiation you're collecting - it's still just the sum of the telescopes you're using.
I'll try to put it simply. Let's use optical telescopes as a familiar example. (In practice optical interferometry is much harder than radio astronomy, but I digress). The larger the diameter of the mirror (or lens) the more light we collect, and the smaller an object we can look at with reasonable detail (There is a physical relationship between the diameter of the telescope and the smallest thing you can resolve with it). We could space multiple telescopes a good distance apart and increase how small a piece of the sky we can look at in detail. The detail we could now resolve depends on the distance between the telescopes. However we're still only collecting as much light in total as the sum of the light collected by each scope. So even though we can look at a much smaller part of the sky, we won't be able to brighten up the image as much as if we had the larger telescope. It's still worth doing and it still yields discoveries, but it's not the same as having a massive telescope.
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- I'll be here the whole week. Tip your waitress. Try the veal.
Pics or it didn't happen
HeRE!
the moon and various satellites spin around the earth
the earth and various other planetary objects spins around our sun
our sun spins around a giant black hole
what does the giant black hole spin around?
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
exactly how much "fine detail" it is possible to make out in an object from which light does not escape...
Contrary to popular oppinion, London is not burning. It is, in fact, quite nippy.
If the universe is expanding does that mean that the gravity at the center of the blackholes in each galaxy is getting weaker as time passes?, I thought that as black holes sucked in more matter the gravity would get stronger.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
Here is the actual negative surrounded by brackets:
[ ]
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It's the reason slashdot has URL data in posts.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Sagittarius A* ? :)
Dijkstra's Scorpio is better
Ok ok, I'm not a space nerd!
As a physicist, I sometimes wish I could hear the words 'supermassive black hole' in a professional context without immediately thinking of that catchy song from their new album.
xterm -n 8
Pics or it didn't happen
Oh, we have lots of pretty pictures (of colorful surrounding gas). We just don't have enough picture details to determine what it is, that is happening.
What we could really use, like out of a science fiction story, is to stumble upon an ancient astronomer's time-lapse photo project. About 10-20 million years should be sufficient. But in case our stumbling plan fails, how would like to go down in history, sayyyy in 10-20 million years from now, as the guy who got the ball rolling?
Where you read that there is no light to escape from the event horizon?
As far as i know, it is the source of extreme radiation.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
At a first quick glance, I thought the title referred to the subject of a spam mail advertising for a pornsite.
Reading the article, I am sad now that it doesn't.
Do not trust this signature.
So anyway, here's hoping they see something REALLY unusual. Like some point sources of radiation in a perfect geometric pattern. Or a "real" pulsar (not an annoying neutron star) that emits a signal like clockwork.
I mean, they're looking at the center of the galaxy so hopefully a super advanced civilization could put up a big beacon there (GPS for the galaxy). Or maybe just some art. Many Sci-Fi writers have posited that the center of the galaxy would be where all the super aliens would go. (Of course it could also be the worst place, like in Vernor Vinge's novels).
I mean, we're spending billions looking for microbes in Martian dust and (will be) analyzing a few faint photons from the reflections of exo-planets looking for oxygen. I hope we don't ignore a type III civilization broadcasting its presence in the most logical place we could look.
Heck I'd believe in God if I saw a giant cross there!
with the gravitational pull it would look like:
><
rewriting history since 2109
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=expanding
To determine that something is expanding you must first know its dimensions. Since we don't know the dimensions of the universe, we can't really tell if it is expanding or not. There is movement within the observed portion of the universe that is compatible with the concept of an expanding universe.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
These days links in all caps just scream of spam.
milky way black hole PHOTO to nasa, eat the bar.
Like um ...
Cheetos, Kool-Aid, Hot Pockets, Zena Tapes, Inflatable Dolls, Basements for Rent etc ?
Indeed the European Space Agency has had such a project for years: a space optical interferometer named Darwin, with an additional twist: by using descructive interferometry instead of constructive one, they intend to switch off a star in the center of the field of view, to see the planets around (these ones being way darker you wouldn't detect them otherwise), analyse the molecules in them etc. Needless to say, this project is still in its early phases, but indeed appears, with a schedule, in ESA's plans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(ESA)
Herve S.
Nah, no real complaint, it's just unusual to see all caps links in a legitimate comment these days.
but hey, google have money...
ah, you'd still do her. MILFy fun.
Hmm..... Near the "A-Star"?
Does this mean that in the center of our galaxy is the biggest "A-Hole" in our galaxy?
Whew! This water sure is cold!
How exactly do we get "pictures" of a black hole, if light can't escape? Isn't a picture of a black hole basically just a picture showing nearby light and stars etc. spinning around the event horizon?
"Know but never fear the consequences of your actions."
Gee, after 40 frigging years of VLBI you think people would have some clue about aperture synthesis. It ain't no virtual telescope, it's just as real as any other, it's just that the images are done after the fact.
General relativity makes no predictions about what is happening at the center of black holes - there is a singularity in the equations there. Worse, in general relativity singularities are (probably) never "naked" - if you go in to see what is happening you can never come back out, or send a signal back out, to tell us about it.
But, yet, the gravity of the black hole, as experienced outside, does increase with time as things get sucked in.
"The new observations have a resolution equivalent to being able to see, from Earth, a baseball on the surface of the moon." Screw baseballs, I want to see the American flag waving on the Moon.
If you had an array of Hubble sized telescopes in space and could put them whatever distance you'd like from each other, what sort of results could you get?
That is basically the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), which alas has had funding troubles recently. The component telescopes are not the size of the Hubble, but the idea is exactly as you suggest. One thing you could do with this is detect Earth sized planets in a solar system like ours out to a reasonable distance.
Why can't I https://slashdot.org/?
What would be the point?
It'd just be a massive waste of resources. https is pretty expensive, especially given the amount of traffic this site gets.
If you're worried about sending your unencrypted password through the tubes, I don't know, use tor or something, at least makes it less likely for someone who's after you personally to get your login data.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=virtual-telescope-galactic-black-hole&sc=rss
The very fact that you had to provide wikipedia links to define Interferometry and Aperture Synthesis are precisely why the author of TFA did not use those terms to describe the telescope.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=CMwdAc1Dzfg
(accidentally, while half of the videos from those years are "weird" in one way or another, imho this one should be behind rickrolling ;> )
One that hath name thou can not otter
Right here folks: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/blackhole-view-0903.html
Sagittarius A* - Previous location of the Large Hadron Collider
Please mod parent up! This is the single, best explanation of this concept that I have ever seen. My hat is off to you!
Hmmm. Thinking of what you wrote, and at the risk of an over-simplification, would this be a viable analogy:
Imagine magnets with an explosive between them:
I'm trying to reconcile this with what I've read about dark matter/energy... would that be akin to adding some invisible magnets to the above?
My God! My God! It's...full...of.... No....It's.... OMG! OMG! OMG! We've been "Rick Rolled"! It's GOATSE!!!!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Technically I think the gravitational field would be more accurately represented as:
( o )
...but I think Goatse has that trademarked.
thought that was ( * )
Technically I think the gravitational field would be more accurately represented as:
( o )
but the gravity can also distort the frame of reference
rewriting history since 2109
GGP's post shows what gravity is doing to the brackets.
GGP's post shows what gravity is doing to the brackets.
OK, it'd be a real shame to let what was a mediocre joke to begin with get in the way of some serious Slashdot pedantry. So, once more, with the brackets, the actual gravitational field, and the adjusted frame of reference:
( >*< )
Happy now? Never let it be said this is not a collaborative community...
The article freely uses words such as "observe" and "view"... but does not have a single picture. Annoying.
No way will I touch Sarah Barracuda.
...sayeth the Restraining Order.
:)
rewriting history since 2109