This could be the biggest announcement ever in the history of astronomy. Announcement and video follows.
Of all the weird stuff that exists in the universe, such as quasars, pulsars, magnetars, neutron stars, red giants and white dwarfs, one of the most bizarre, and the “holy grail” for scientists to image, is the black hole. Black holes were first identified in Einstein’s theory of general relativity. These gravitational monsters create a gravity well so deep and so steep that they consume everything near them. The gravity is so intense that even light can’t escape. While science already knows quite a bit about black holes, and have posited that one exists at the center of our galaxy since the mid 1970s, there have never been any photographs of black holes. After all, how can you photograph something that sucks in all the light around it?
The answer? Look for the event horizon.
That lack of photography may be about to change on April 10th, 2019. From the EHT webpage:
The European Commission, European Research Council, and the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project will hold a press conference to present a groundbreaking result from the EHT.
- When: On 10 April 2019 at 15:00 CEST
- Where: The press conference will be held at the Berlaymont Building, Rue de la Loi (Wetstraat) 200, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium. The event will be introduced by European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, and will feature presentations by the researchers behind this result.
- What: A press conference to present a groundbreaking result from the EHT.
- Who: The European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, will deliver remarks. Anton Zensus, Chair of the EHT Collaboration Board will also make remarks and introduce a panel of EHT researchers who will explain the result and answer questions:
- Heino Falcke, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands (Chair of the EHT Science Council)
- Monika Mościbrodzka, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands (EHT Working Group Coordinator)
- Luciano Rezzolla, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt, Germany (EHT Board Member)
- Eduardo Ros, Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany, (EHT Board Secretary)
The conference will be streamed online on the ESO website, by the ERC, and on social media. We will take a few questions from social media using the hashtag #AskEHTeu.
An ESO press release will be publicly issued shortly after the start of the conference at 15:07 CEST. Translations of the press release will be available in multiple languages, along with extensive supporting audiovisual material.
A total of six major press conferences will be held simultaneously around the globe in Belgium (Brussels, English), Chile (Santiago, Spanish), Shanghai (Mandarin), Japan (Tokyo, Japanese), Taipei (Mandarin), and USA (Washington, D.C., English).
The European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas will speak in Brussels, the President of the Academia Sinica, James Liao, will speak in Taipei, the ALMA Director Sean Dougherty and the ESO Director General Xavier Barcons will speak in Santiago, and the NSF Director France A. Córdova will speak in Washington DC.
Due to the importance of this result, we encourage satellite events in the different ESO Member States and beyond. If you wish to arrange a satellite event please contact Katharina Königstein (k.konigstein@astro.ru.nl) for details on the live feed. There are satellite-events currently planned in Madrid, Rome, Gothenburg, Nijmegen and Pretoria.
For any further information and updates, please also check the Event Horizon Telescope webpage at https://eventhorizontelescope.org.
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After digging deep, it seems it is the Black Hole at the Milky Way’s center that is the subject of the upcoming photographs.
We need a set of telescopes like these spread as wide as the orbit of the Earth. I bet we could photogragh a lot of things, with hardware like that! 🙂
We’ll be doing all sorts of things like this once humans start moving into the Earth/Moon space. Maybe less than 25 years from now.
Or even high powered geostationary satellites.
I like the artists’ conceptions better.
I hope that some day we can replace every astronomical photo with an artist’s conception.
So they may have “photographed” a mathematical fudge factor…. Amazing. It’ll probably look like a polar bear on an iceberg.
… May have photographed a black hole? Ok.
A pitch for more money -to study an unverifiable event , in an unmeasurable horizon – by convoluted argument which no one can understand -and hypothesize on unknown unknowns- which cannot be falsified – I won’t hold my black hole captive , while plasma streams are clearly seen .
Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.
The Works of George Santayana
Nothing to see here folks, move along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cia_v4vxfE
Fed-x is faster than the Internet!
From the video at 49min mark. Thought that was funny, but is made sense.
Entertainingly described at …
https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/
But seriously, we do it all the time. We have Internet 2 connections (largest capacity network feeds, and no porn to clog up the network … unless you count some of the climate data that is surely crossing that network) and we still routinely use devices like Snowballs to move petabyte sided data sets between data centers.
https://aws.amazon.com/snowball/
Clever packaging … LCD shipping labels, permanently attached power cords, network cable with GBIC attached for plug compatibility with any modern network switch, all in a self storing molded impact resistant case.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/yl25W7LZAMU&w=640&h=480%5D
The elephant in the room is the assumption that black holes are what we think they are. There may indeed exist gravity wells of all sorts. But I think we must be open to all kinds of systems in the heavens. The scale of rotating bodies can make for some very strange objects to observe. I think that Jefimenko made a good case for antigravity in his work with mass currents. If indeed these do exist then what we observe and what we assign to the observation may be way off. But man loves to think we have figured it all out. Just be careful that a new picture does not allow group think to take over. I like to study the non-orthodox theories. I think that is where the next leap will come from. Right now I am studying the work of Distinti on the ether and a new model of electromagnetism. If he has some things correct then a new picture from the sky may mean something completely different than what some would assume. Just be ready for more questions and no conclusions.
So, let’s review:
Something that has zero volume and does NOT emit light can be … “photographed”. Is this correct?
They are trying to photograph the event horizon of a massive black hole. Event horizons are not zero volume.
Jim
So, the event horizon has a position and a form that can register in a “photograph”?
I still don’t get what the physical entity is that the “photograph” would capture.
This “event horizon” seems to be defined by “events” — descriptions of actions that do not have physical forms independently or collectively as an ensemble of happenings somehow exuding a visual impression.
The “event horizon” seems to be an imagined, conceptual boundary, based on a mathematical theory, rather than an actual thing that registers as a physical entity subject to being “photographed”.
I’ll look at the video now, I suppose.
“Black holes were first identified in Einstein’s theory of general relativity.”
Not so. The possibility of their existence, a solar mass so great that its gravity would prevent the light from escaping, was discussed in the 19th century, probably before Einstein was out of diapers.
Do black holes eventually experience entropy ?
If so, then what ?
Yes. However, it would take about 10^66 years for a solar mass black hole to evaporate. And for a 4 million solar black hole, about 6.4 * 10 ^85 years. Black holes put out radiation and other mass randomly. For a large black hole, that would start with very low energy (long wavelength) photons. At its very end, a black hole should emit radiation at a temperature 5 x 10^17 Kelvins at the beginning of its final second. This is far beyond anything at CERN. At Planck time, it should emit a particle with a mass of roughly 3.4 x 10^19 atomic mass, or 3.1 x 10^28 eV. Hot!
The mass of a black hole can be no greater than the mass of the original star that went supernova????????
“Astronomers may have photographed a black hole for the very first time”
So that’s what I photographed in my youth! I thought it was just unexposed film.
“Black holes were first identified in Einstein’s theory of general relativity. ”
John Mitchell, 1784.
Michell, not Mitchell
Using Newton’s law of gravitation and his second law of motion, we can, with the aid of some integral calculus, derive the equation for escape velocity:
where
is escape velocity, 
is Newton’s gravitational constant, 
is the mass of the body, and 
is the surface radius of the body.
Escape velocity is the velocity required to completely leave a gravitational body and never return. We can rearrange the terms of this equation and solve for radius:
or radius is inversely proportional to the square of escape velocity. If we increase the escape velocity of a mass, then the surface radius decreases. Increase escape velocity to the speed-of-light will give us the event horizon of a mass. This is also call the Schwarzchild radius:
where
is the speed-of-light. Notice that this is still classical Newtonian physics–I’m not using General Relativity at all. Saying that Newton doesn’t predict black bodies isn’t exactly true.
Let’s solve for the Earth:
= 6.674E-11 m^3 kg^-1 s ^-2, 
= 5.9722E24 kg, and 
= 2.99792458E8 m/s; and we get 0.887 cm. If we made the Earth a black hole, it would have an event horizon of about 7/10 of an inch across.
Now let’s apply this to Sagittarius A*, the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy. It’s mass is estimated at 4.31E6 solar masses and a solar mass is 1.989E30 kg. Plugging these values into the equation gives us 1.273E10 meters.
To get some feel for this number, we’ll convert to astronomical units. The average distance of the Earth from the Sun is defined as an astronomical unit or is about 1.49597E11 meters. If we divide by this number we get 8.51 Au.
Jupiter’s distance is 5.2 Au and Saturn’s is 9.5 Au. The event horizon of the massive black hole would be just inside the orbit of Saturn if it was at the center of our Solar System.
Jim
Typo, I meant: ” Saying that Newton doesn’t predict black holes isn’t exactly true” not “black bodies.”
Jim
It is my understanding that the Schwarzchild solution requires:
that the rotating angular momentum = 0,
the charge = 0,
and the cosmological constant = 0,
in a vacuum.
Sagittarius A* is in the middle of a rotating galaxy that is not a vacuum but full of gaseous plasma and stars.
Question: what happens to the angular momentum of the accretion disk in a rotating field of matter?
Well, I was using classical Newtonian physics, so it doesn’t seem to apply to anything but a Schwarzchild black hole. It sounds like you want a Kerr black hole, or something like it.
>>
Question: what happens to the angular momentum of the accretion disk in a rotating field of matter?
<<
Nothing. Angular momentum is conserved.
Jim
Jim, I am merely pointing out a major problem that afflicts these discussions about ‘science by press release’.
People refer to black holes, super massive black holes, Schwarzchild radius, singularities, event horizons, mergers of neutron stars and black holes, ad infinitum. We invoke Newton and Einstein, Schwarzchild, Kerr, Kerr-Newman, Reissner-Nordstrom, and we tend to mix and match the parts we like and discard the parts that are inconvenient.
This type of press release seldom if ever defines which of the 4 different types of black hole they are looking for (as you say, probably Kerr). Do all 4 types exist? Certainly not. Do any exist? Maybe. They are all mathematical constructs or solutions.
The problem with both Kerr and Schwarzchild solutions is they both are described as being surrounded by empty spacetime. I.E a Vacuum.
Reissner-Nordstrom is a static solution in which Nothing Is Moving.
Kerr-Newman …”describes the spacetime geometry in the region surrounding a charged, rotating mass. This solution has not been especially useful for describing astrophysical phenomena, because observed astronomical objects do not possess an appreciable net electric charge.”(Wiki)
So in summary none of these black holes describe what We see when We look at the universe.
How can a Kerr black hole surrounded by empty space time pull Anything into it if it is surrounded by Nothing?
I enjoy your comments, I just have lots of questions I guess.
Mathematicians have created black holes inside their mathematical laboratories, black holes isolated by definition inside a universe with only one central mass.
They then remove the black holes from isolation and plunk them down willy nilly in our universe that is populated by Billions of massive objects, including other black holes. They even get to smash black holes together.
Not bad for an object that originates and exists isolated in a one mass universe.
Does the hour-long video actually show this new photo of the area around a black hole? Or is this just a tease? Let me know when the photo is actually available to the public.