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Hubble Directly Images Disc Around a Black Hole

Posted by Soulskill on from the pretty-pictures dept.

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from the HST site: "A team of scientists has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe a quasar accretion disc — a brightly glowing disc of matter that is slowly being sucked into its galaxy's central black hole. Their study makes use of a novel technique that uses gravitational lensing to give an immense boost to the power of the telescope. The incredible precision of the method has allowed astronomers to directly measure the disc's size and plot the temperature across different parts of the disc."

3 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Hubble Space Telescope by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Blowing your mind since 1990

    Best damn use of NASA funds, since the Moon landing.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Brilliant by Bovius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Using stars between us and the black hole as a lens to magnify the viewing target? That seems like the astronomer's equivalent of a ninja move. Brilliant.

    We're sure getting a lot of use out of Hubble. Weren't we planning on decommissioning it at some point in time? I'm glad we didn't.

  3. Hubble: White Elephant MY ASS! by Chas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Giving the finger to naysayers, budget cutters and luddite schmucks for 20+ years (and going). Not to mention some absolutely MIND-BLOWING interstellar photography.

    Definitely not bad for a girl with glasses.

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    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!