First-ever photo of black hole may be coming within days

[brooklynite]

NBC News

Humanity could be days away from seeing the first-ever photograph of a black hole.

We've seen countless illustrations and simulations of black holes in recent years but never an actual close-up photo of one. That could change Wednesday, when scientists will gather in six simultaneous press briefings around the world to unveil the "groundbreaking result" of a yearslong effort to capture images of the black holes at the centers of our Milky Way galaxy and a neighboring galaxy.

The U.S. press briefing will be held at 9 a.m. Eastern at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and will be livestreamed here. It will be hosted by the National Science Foundation and the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an international collaboration that's been working to photograph a black hole using eight linked radio observatories around the world to form a single Earth-size telescope.

The scientists involved in the effort declined to discuss the result in advance of the press events, which will be held in Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Tokyo and Tapei as well as Washington. But the result is believed to be based upon a vast trove of data from observations made in April 2017 of Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star), the supermassive black hole lying 26,000 light-years from Earth at the center of the Milky Way, and another supermassive black hole at the center of the neighboring Virgo A galaxy.

[manor321]

1. Intriguing but of course any "images" will be of activity around the black hole.

And the "images" may be in the radio spectrum or other parts outside the visible.

I'm looking forward to what they have found, though. I'm hoping for a tighter estimation of the mass and size.

[jayfish]

8. Yeah, title seems a bit misleading.

More than likely a picture of an accretion disk and orbiting stars.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Oh my goodness I love this stuff.

Very cool

[malaise]

3. Live Stream

https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/blackholes/

[MineralMan]

4. The press briefing will occur on April 10.

I post that for people who won't bother to click the link.

[Bayard]

5. Very, very cool beans

And our passage way to other worlds!

[Yavin4]

6. Wait, Trump has schedule a brain MRI?

Ah, good to know.

[Yavin4]

7. Actually, the photos won't be released.

William Barr intends to view the pictures himself and draft a 4 page summary for the public.