Explaining the Science Around the First Black Hole Image
Much interest has been generated by last week’s report of the world’s first image of a black hole (above). The Astrophysical Journal Letters reported on the experiment by Professor Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands.
According to BBC news:
“The image shows an intensely bright “ring of fire”, as Prof Falcke describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by superheated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined – which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth.”
Despite some critics having raised questions about the discovery, the consensus among astronomers has been positive.
Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London – who collaborated on the project explains:
“Although they are relatively simple objects, black holes raise some of the most complex questions about the nature of space and time, and ultimately of our existence,” he said.
“It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we obtain from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again.”
Science author and amateur astronomer, Gregg Thompson explains:
“The reason they could image this is that they cleverly combined images from radio telescopes from across the planet to make one telescope with the effective aperture of our whole planet! When we place radio telescopes out in the solar system we will get far more detailed images.
It’s the first ever picture of matter (disintegrating stars close to a black hole) spinning around outside of the event horizon of a supermassive black hole at the centre of the relatively close, supermassive elliptical galaxy M87 at the center of the Virgo galaxy cluster. “
For further information please see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rflupY5Aa-Q This explains the discovery well. 15 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KedrdpwOSkU Brian green gives a good brief explanation. 3 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoExPq04OQQ This explanation of a black hole is excellent. 9 min
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jerry krause
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Hi John O’,
This seems to maybe answer some of my questions and maybe correct some of my conclusions.
Maybe this is one of my stupid questions: How do radio telescopes see color?
Have a good day, Jerry
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John O'Sullivan
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Hi Jerry, Good question, Perhaps some experts who work in the field of radio astronomy can assist?
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Robert Beatty
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Radio telescopes pick up radio waves in the 10cm to 10m wavelengths. Once these invisible rays are collected, it is up to our IT wiz guys to make a colour interpretation of the results. In this case they have chosen a rather fetching red-orange blend.
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jerry krause
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Hi John O’,
As Robert as explained, my question was really stupid. For I came here this morning knowing when I use Excel to create figures of lines from numbers measured during different times, each line is a different color to allow one trace to be compared with another. And the color has nothing to do with the numbers (data).
So I was thinking of the image as being a photograph and not something generated by a computer from numbers (data). But I am not the only one who considers the image to be a photograph.
Gregg Thompson explains: “The reason they could image this is that they cleverly combined images from radio telescopes from across the planet to make one telescope with the effective aperture of our whole planet!”
There is only one reason one increases the aperture of a camera. It is the light being ‘seen’ is very dim. But the image created from all those numbers which were combined does at all look as if what was being seen was very dim. No, the radio telescopes where looking at a large region of space which appeared as if there was nothing there because what there was creating a very, very, weak signal.
In other words, the individual radio telescopes where ‘seeing’ a huge black hole of very, very, very diffuse matter.
Now we have to consider a lesson which Johannes Kepler learned. Tycho Brahe had not observed very diffuse matter with his ‘naked’ eye and Kepler had analyzed this data of some planets, given the possibility, of observation error, and considered the orbital paths of some planets were circular. But when he came to Mars, the fit of data to a circular path was too great for him to assume the lack of fit was observation error. So we know he recalculated assuming the path was elliptical and the data of Mars fit this assumed path with good precision. So, we know he went back to Brahe’s data of the other planets and found this data fit elliptical paths better than they had fit the assumed circular paths.
Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London – who collaborated on the project explains: “It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we obtain from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again.”
I do not know much about computers but one thing I do know is that they do what they are told to do. And I have to believe the computer analyzed the data from these multiple telescopes according to the assumption of Einstein’s theory. So it is no wonder why the ‘data’ seems to fit Einstein’s theory.
But the great deception of the imagine is the very, very, very, diffuse matter which was observed certainly does not appear to be very, very, very, diffuse in the image.
Have a good day, Jerry
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