Next-generation Event Horizon Telescope developments: new stations for enhanced imaging We will search for flares and hotspots, provide priors for EHT image reconstruction, and track any activity associated with the closest approach of the massive star S0-2. This campaign will double our chances of simultaneous flares.
In anticipation of a follow-up campaign in 2018, we are requesting 4x33 ks Chandra observations of Sgr A* to be coordinated with EHT. As Sgr A* is a well-known source of X-ray flares, coordinated Chandra/ EHT observations offer an incredible opportunity: a chance to observe structures (e.g., hotspots) near the event horizon while tracking their high-energy variability. In April 2017, the Event Horizon Telescope will observe Sgr A* with imaging quality sufficient to resolve the shadow of the black hole, while providing a close-up view of accretion at the horizon. Our black hole does not.Action at the Horizon: Chandra/ EHT Observations of Sgr A* "Perhaps more importantly, the one in M87 launches a powerful jet that extends as far as the edge of that galaxy.
"The one in M87 is accumulating matter at a significantly faster rate than Sgr A*," she said. Still, she said, the two black holes are very different from one another - for one thing, the Milky Way's black hole isn't as voracious. The discovery comes three years after the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration released the first-ever image of a black hole - but that work focused on the center of galaxy Messier 87, tens of millions of light-years away from Earth in the Virgo cluster of galaxies.Ĭommenting on the similarities of the two images, of a dark shadow surrounded by a bright ring, Özel stated, "It seems that black holes like donuts." "We were stunned by how well the size of the ring agreed with predictions from Einstein's Theory of General Relativity," said EHT Project Scientist Geoffrey Bower, from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Academia Sinica in Taipei.
EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE COST SERIES
The researchers announced the news Thursday morning at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., but it was simultaneously released around the world, in a series of news conferences held in Mexico City, Shanghai, Tokyo, and other cities. "Although we cannot see the black hole itself, because it is completely dark, glowing gas around it reveals a telltale signature: a dark central region (called a 'shadow') surrounded by a bright ring-like structure," the EHT team said in its announcement. To obtain the image, scientists used observations from April 2017, when all eight observatories were pointed at the black hole. More than 300 researchers collaborated on the effort to capture the image, compiling information from radio observatories around the world. It took several years to refine our image and confirm what we had, but we prevailed." "What made it extra challenging was the dynamic environment of Sgr A*, a source that burbled then gurgled as we looked at it," Özel said, "and the challenges of looking not only through our own atmosphere, but also through the gas clouds in the disk of our galaxy towards the center. Putting the size of the black hole into an Earthling's perspective, the team said that seeing it from the surface of our planet would be like trying to spot a donut on the moon. Now they have a direct view of what Feryal Özel, a professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Arizona, called the "gentle giant" itself. In the case of Sgr A*, scientists have previously observed stars orbiting around the Milky Way's center. But scientists have been able to detect and study them based on the powerful effects they exert on their surroundings. Its mass is about 4 million times that of the sun, and it's about 27,000 light years from Earth, according to MIT.īlack holes have long been a source of public fascination, but they also pose notorious challenges to researchers, mainly because their gravitational fields are so strong that they either bend light or prevent it from escaping entirely. The black hole is often referred to as Sgr A*, pronounced sadge ay star. "It's the dawn of a new era of black hole physics," it added. "We finally have the first look at our Milky Way black hole, Sagittarius A*," an international team of astrophysicists and researchers from the Event Horizon Telescope team announced on Thursday. For years, the supermassive black hole in the dark center of the Milky Way galaxy has been theorized about and studied - and finally, it's been captured in an image.
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