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Astronomers Dissect a Supermassive Black Hole

Posted by kdawson on from the telescopes-are-where-you-find-them dept.

Matt_dk sends along a piece from the European Southern Observatory, which reports on observations of the so-called "Einstein Cross," a fortuitous conjunction of a nearby galaxy and a distant black hole. A team of researchers from Europe and the US combined the effects of macrolensing (from the intervening galaxy) and microlensing (from stars in that galaxy), captured by an earth-bound telescope. "Combining a double natural 'magnifying glass' with the power of ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have scrutinized the inner parts of the disc around a supermassive black hole 10 billion light-years away. They were able to study the disc with a level of detail a thousand times better than that of the best telescopes in the world, providing the first observational confirmation of the prevalent theoretical models of such discs."

58 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. rest of sentence by uberjoe · · Score: 5, Funny

    And were never seen again.

    --

    The days of the digital watch are numbered.

    1. Re:rest of sentence by SinGunner · · Score: 1

      Of all things, this somehow caught me off guard and almost made me laugh lemonade out my nose (a painful prospect). Sorry I didn't have any mod points.

  2. And yet... by Hertne · · Score: 5, Funny

    the article makes absolutely no mention of glaciers melting in the dead of night.

  3. I did that too by Strep · · Score: 1

    when I was "dissecting" some hot babes in bikinis at the beach and this huge yeti walked into the path. My paper will be published next month.

  4. lucky event by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Quote FTA:

    "The use of the macro- and microlensing, coupled with the giant eye of the VLT, enabled astronomers to probe regions on scales as small as a millionth of an arcsecond. This corresponds to the size of a one euro coin seen at a distance of five million kilometres, i.e., about 13 times the distance to the Moon!"

    A truly fortuitous occurence. How long before our technology can catch up to that level?

  5. But can they put it back together again? by Erelas · · Score: 1

    Astronomers Dissect a Supermassive Black Hole

    Was kinda hoping they'd opened its super-dense stomach to analyze what it'd been eating. "Frederic, clean up after yourself! You left black hole innards all over the scalpel."

  6. When passing the event horizon, it's expected. by sethstorm · · Score: 4, Funny

    At least they'd be able to say they worked closely together on the issue.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    1. Re:When passing the event horizon, it's expected. by davidsyes · · Score: 1

      Under the pressure of 47,000 consumed black holes, they will (disembodied) definitely come closer together as one entity, physically, and molecularly. As for the souls, who knows?

      --
      Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
    2. Re:When passing the event horizon, it's expected. by ivucica · · Score: 1

      Cthulhu!

    3. Re:When passing the event horizon, it's expected. by ATMD · · Score: 1

      Bless you.

      --
      Nobody else has this sig.
    4. Re:When passing the event horizon, it's expected. by ivucica · · Score: 1

      Devour you

    5. Re:When passing the event horizon, it's expected. by badkarmadayaccount · · Score: 1

      You do know there is a blatant typo in your sig, right? (Sorry for being OT)

      --
      I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
    6. Re:When passing the event horizon, it's expected. by awright69 · · Score: 1

      As for the souls, who knows?

      Call it an exercise in metaphysics.

  7. Black hole autopsy by Coraon · · Score: 3, Funny

    The new fox special: "Where did it come from? was this the child of the LHC? which shadowy government agency was responable for its capture? all will be reviled in Black Hole autopsy, tonight on fox!"

    --
    -Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
    1. Re:Black hole autopsy by tyrione · · Score: 1

      What did the black hole ever do to you that you revile it?

  8. On the otherside of the visible universe by critical_point · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It has not been that long since people first discovered such quasars, and at that time they seemed destined to remain a mega-distant mystery. In the mean time astronomers have accumulated a large body of results on gravitational lensing, which itself is a prediction of Einstein's not-too-old general theory of relativity. Now this technique has been used to form a galatic-cluster-scale configuration that acts as a telescope which can bring us images of this extreme level of detail from across the visible universe. We live in a very exciting period for the science of astronomy.

  9. CSI Spinoff by retech · · Score: 2, Funny

    This will only lead to yet another CSI spinoff, CSI: ESO. Of course Jeff Goldblum will have to be the quirky male lead that fascinates us while still making us slightly uncomfortable.

    1. Re:CSI Spinoff by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      Hey, maybe they could bring in Natalie Portman as his borderline-lesbian-almost-love-interest. You know, the hot babe they bring in just for the sexual tension... ;)

      --
      My blog
  10. Wow, that is some serious science. by blue+l0g1c · · Score: 1, Funny

    If I'm understanding it right. Unfortunately I can't even come up with a car analogy to describe what I think they're doing.

    1. Re:Wow, that is some serious science. by Shikaku · · Score: 1

      It's a Pinto that is so explosive that eventually it started imploding and collapse into itself.

    2. Re:Wow, that is some serious science. by lpontiac · · Score: 1

      Yo dawg I heard you like magnifying, so we put a gravitational lens in your gravitational lens.

  11. Re:GOATSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    For the first time, a first post linking to goatse under a science article may be considered on-topic.

  12. Oh no :( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Those freakin' scientists...MICROLENSING the black hole! And a supermassive one at that. The audacity.

    In fact, I can just hear it now:

    ooh baby don't you know I suffer??

  13. Scully Using a Very Large Scapel for Dissection? by billstewart · · Score: 1

    Obviously an alien object autopsy like that calls for Gillian Anderson to do the dissection. The question is where they'd get a large enough scalpel to dissect a supermassive black hole?

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  14. World's Largest by sexconker · · Score: 1

    Universe's Largest Scalpel

  15. For once, it's relevant. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    N/T

  16. Re:Scully Using a Very Large Scapel for Dissection by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The question is where they'd get a large enough scalpel to dissect a supermassive black hole?

    And yet sharp enough to dissect a singularity.

    --
    Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  17. Those freakin' scientists by Lars+T. · · Score: 2, Informative

    They truly are boffins - one is even called Boffin.

    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    1. Re:Those freakin' scientists by kurzweilfreak · · Score: 1

      Too bad he didn't have to die to bring us this information...

      --

      kurzweil_freak

      5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student

      Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.

    2. Re:Those freakin' scientists by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      When that's your name, you just have to become a scientist. Like a music teacher I used to know, Derek Tuba.

    3. Re:Those freakin' scientists by badkarmadayaccount · · Score: 1

      He said Boffin, not coffin. Or am I missing something?

      --
      I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
  18. Re:rest of sentence... They'll be back... by davidsyes · · Score: 1

    Intellectually, maybe. After all, they are ... "brighter than a thousand sons"....

    --
    Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
  19. Question for Astronomers by reginaldo · · Score: 1

    How does macrolensing/microlensing end up magnifying an area in space? To my caveman-like mind, it seems like it would act more as an attenuating factor, reducing the signal to fuzz.

    I can assume that macrolensing only works as a magnification if you are not looking for things such as spatial detail, and are instead looking for general facts such as temperatures and wavelengths of light. But then I am assumming...

    1. Re:Question for Astronomers by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      How does macrolensing/microlensing end up magnifying an area in space? To my caveman-like mind, it seems like it would act more as an attenuating factor, reducing the signal to fuzz.

      The macrolensing and microlensing both work in the same way as standard lensing.

      do you remember Huyghens Construction showing how a change in the propagation (phase) velocity of a wave in one region compared to another region can lead to the laws of refraction and reflection of waves? And how this was used as evidence that the nature of light was wave-like? Back in the early 18th century it was, IIRC (before the likes of Young demonstrated that interference effects meant that light must have a wave nature rather than a corpuscular nature, and before Einstein won his Nobel for demonstrating that light must have a corpuscular nature rather than a wave nature, and then quantum happened and the sales of headache pills took off)

      You don't remember? Your physics teacher wasted those hours splashing around with the ripple tank. Shame on you, wasting his/ her/ it's/ their efforts like that!

      Well, given Huyghen's construction and a bounded, more or less spherical region of reduced phase velocity (by whatever means), then you get lensing. Again, those poor neglected physics teachers did try to impart this to you. It's not relevant what the source of the reduced regional phase velocity for light is - it could be the density of gases (cue : hot-air mirage) ; it could be gravitational fields (Eddington's famous demonstration of Special Relativity at the 1920 solar eclipse, or did you sleep through that physics lesson too?); it could be the diligent activity of maliciously trained Maxwellian Daemon (Hi Marijke, if you're listening) running around grabbing photons by the tail and slowing them down that way. The result is the same : slowing across a geometrically limited region brings waves to a focus. Not necessarily a good focus, but a focus nonetheless.

      The optical centre of the lenses is nearer to us than it is to the quasars in question. As a matter of simple Euclidian geometry, this means that the image is magnified. That would probably have been in the physics lectures some weeks before the ones about the nature and behaviour of waves.

      Of course, I suppose that it's possible that your school hasn't covered these topics yet ; if not, I'd suggest that you ask your parents for permission to get a science tutor, so that you can get up to speed on the basic knowledge necessary for a 14-year-old to get into senior school.

      Sorry, this does sound rather catty, doesn't it. But this is fundamental school stuff, which I and possibly you pay good tax money to have inculcated into kids in time for them to go on to learn more complex stuff, like how to make crystal meth and fusion reactors. It's a while since I had to go back through it - hence checking that it was Huyghens' Construction above instead of Young's. But it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes for the brain to bring it back from off-line storage.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    2. Re:Question for Astronomers by pnewhook · · Score: 1

      Of course, I suppose that it's possible that your school hasn't covered these topics yet ; if not, I'd suggest that you ask your parents for permission to get a science tutor, so that you can get up to speed on the basic knowledge necessary for a 14-year-old to get into senior school.

      Of course the school hasn't taught this yet. Because to teach anything that would imply the earth is not the center of the universe and more than 8000 years old would be contrary to the teachings of God and must of course be wrong. Welcome to church controlled schooling.

      --
      Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
    3. Re:Question for Astronomers by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Of course the school hasn't taught this yet. Because to teach anything that would imply the earth is not the center of the universe and more than 8000 years old would be contrary to the teachings of God and must of course be wrong. Welcome to church controlled schooling.

      Maybe I was lucky in the schooling I received : the worst teacher for ramming religion down his charges throats (Chemistry, Dr. Blunt, I'm afraid) was totally ineffectual since he was trying to both teach chemistry (in which he had his PhD) and ram religion down people's throats, which just doesn't work. Meanwhile, the teacher whose job it was to ram religion down the throats of the unwilling ("Religious Education" classes, by methodist lay preacher Mr Verity) had to deal with the contradictions of having nominal Christians, a Jew, a JW (whose parents had astonishing faith in their faith and didn't ban him from attending R.E.), several Hindus, a couple of Muslims plus at least one vocal atheist [/self] all in the same class and all espousing what boils down to "I'm right, everyone else is wrong." Even the more clinically retarded of my classmates couldn't help but see that not everyone could be right.

      I only just realised the appropriateness of those names, after 30 freaking years! and I swear to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem that I'm not making them up!

      I think I've still got Verity's last school report on me somewhere : "Exam result : 98%. Comments : Top of the year! As an atheist, Karley should be ashamed of himself!" I laughed for a week. well, a couple of hours.

      Well, let the religious take control of the schools. The worst they can do is bring technological society crashing to it's knees, and I doubt that people's self-interest will allow them to get very far down the road of starvation, power cuts and infectious diseases before some of the more prominent god-nuts get strung up from lamp posts and lit for illumination (pun intended).

      I gather that the situation is far worse in the US than it is in the bulk of the world (though sitting here off the coast of Israel, I do wonder how far the canker has spread?), but I believe the US has laws requiring people to use semi-automatic hand guns in protection of their SUV-clad lifestyle, so you know what to do. "Pray to your god to stop the bullet, mutthafukka! Now put your faith in your prayers and your lips round this gun barrel."

      Subtlty used to be my strong point. Used to be.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  20. Oh c'mon.... by smartin14 · · Score: 1

    ...Roseanne Barr's proctologist can hardly be considered an "astronomer".....

  21. There's a joke... by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

    ...about asstronomers, Goatse and the large hardon collider (or harcon collider?) in there...

    Who's first?

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  22. Hey, that belongs... by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

    ... to the world's most giant doctor!

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  23. Re:GOATSE by David+Gerard · · Score: 2

    How black holes open up.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  24. Car Analogy. by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's sort of as if by combining a double natural 'magnifying glass' with the power of ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have scrutinized the inner parts of a car 10 billion light-years away. They were able to study the car with a level of detail a thousand times better than that of the best telescopes in the world, providing the first observational confirmation of the prevalent theoretical models of such cars.

    Hope that helps!

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
    1. Re:Car Analogy. by Cowmonaut · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, I see now!

  25. I want Einstein's cross on a silver chain by xant · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... seriously. This would be such a great accessory for the scientifically-minded. It's a nice, distinctive-looking piece of science. Wear it as an atheist as a statement about religion; wear it next to your christian cross as a non-atheist as a statement about rational spirituality. Whatever - I just think someone could make a nice piece of thoughtful jewelery out of this.

    --
    It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
  26. Still to prove... by EtaCarinae · · Score: 1

    They've been measuring these 4 images for years to see if the curves can be fit together and thereby prove that it is in fact the same quasar we see four times. As far as I know this is still unestablished. Known non-mainstream cosmologists such as Halton Arp believe these four objects are distinct and have been ejected by the center galaxy...

    1. Re:Still to prove... by EtaCarinae · · Score: 1

      I'm not that much for the ejection "crackpot" ideas ;-), they're amusing though. I haven't RTFA, but I wonder if there's anything in the measurement data indicating some orientation of the quasar output. Then it would be possible to perform the same measurements on the other three objects and check if the estimated orientation correlates. I guess it's not possible from these kinds of observations though.

      Regarding the problem with correlating the four objects variable light - what might be the largest time difference from a lens like this? I have no idea. Could one image be delayed a hundred years? Seems too much to me. It would be very cool if they eventually could tell the 4 images mutual delays!

      It's kind of awesome having these far point sources being sighted through star fields. Even though they're just a couple of light days wide, I guess there might be like a fog of stars passing by in a fast flowing stream. Probably very interesting to study the diffraction stuff and how the filtering affects the natural variance in the quasar's light!

    2. Re:Still to prove... by EtaCarinae · · Score: 1

      Yes. I think they're pretty much at the same redshift. This is however also expected from Arp's ideas though.

      There should be other features as well, such as Lyman-alpha forests usable in establishing the sameness of these objects. I don't know if these has/can be measured for these four objects though...

  27. Why an Einstein Cross? by Stephen+Ma · · Score: 1

    Why does gravitational lensing yield four images of the distant quasar, resulting in a cross? Since the quasar presumably radiates energy in all directions, shouldn't its image be a continuous ring? Why are we seeing four distinct blobs instead?

    1. Re:Why an Einstein Cross? by GleeBot · · Score: 3, Informative

      Some gravitational lensing configurations do, in fact, produce a ring. As you might expect, though, such perfect alignment is pretty rare, and you usually get partial arcs or smeared out blobs.

      I'm not knowledgeable about the exact reason for the cross configuration is, but the unusual effects of gravitational lensing are often due to the fact that the lens (a massive galaxy, in most cases) isn't a perfect point source, so the optical effects are somewhat surprising.

  28. Re:pft yeah right - 10 billion light years away by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

    I just called the ESO and they told me that if they ever find a supermassive black hole inside the solar system they'll let you know.

    --
    USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
  29. Re:pft yeah right - 10 billion light years away by FranklinWebber · · Score: 3, Informative

    Several responses to your post:

    "...wait for 10 billion years...": no, whatever happened seems to have happened some 10 billion years _ago_.

    "...convergence of fake radiation...": although the 10-billion-year-old events are still quite open to argument, the astronomers observed _real_ radiation from them.

    "...fricken verifiable data closer to earth...": any slashdotter can tell you that you'll get your nearby black hole data just a few dozen milliseconds after the LHC starts working.

  30. MUSE by ShakaUVM · · Score: 1

    LOL

    I had Supermassive Black Hole playing in the background when I read this article summary.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsp3_a-PMTw

  31. Other common dumbing-down... by A+New+Normalcy · · Score: 1

    How many football fields away is that?

    --
    ...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
    1. Re:Other common dumbing-down... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Funny

      How many football fields away is that?

      Lots. Like, a whole fucking lot.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    2. Re:Other common dumbing-down... by Gilmoure · · Score: 1

      Can black hole massivity be measured in LoCs?

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
  32. so....does this mean? by prndll · · Score: 1

    that the existence of black holes has been proven beyond theory or any possible conjecture? I mean...let's step back from Stargate and wormhole physics here.

    1. Re:so....does this mean? by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      "[Does this mean]the existence of black holes has been proven beyond theory or any possible conjecture?"

      Science doesn't "prove" anything and "beyond theory or any possible conjecture" implies something super-natural or divine but yes the existance of black holes has been accepted by science for several decades. You cannot please everyone so I am sure there are still a few who deny the existance of black holes due to the long tail of skepticisim

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  33. Re:Pictures? by Golddess · · Score: 1

    Here's an artist's rendition.

    O

    If you can't tell, it's been split down the center and pulled apart.

    --
    "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
  34. Astronomers Dissect a Supermassive Black Hole by STFS · · Score: 1

    Astronomer: "Scalpel..."

    *slurp*

    Astronomer: "crap... another one please..."

    --
    You don't think enough... therefore you better not be!