Giant Radio Telescope Peels Away Magnetic Field Shrouding Black Hole

[Judi Lynn]

Giant Radio Telescope Peels Away Magnetic Field Shrouding Black Hole

by Shannon Hall, Staff Writer | April 16, 2015 02:01pm ET


[font size=1]
An artist's impression shows a black hole's surroundings, including its accretion disk, jet and magnetic field.
Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
[/font]
Astronomers have peeled away most of the gas and dust enshrouding a monster black hole, taking a close look at the giant that lies some 68 thousand light-years away.

A team of scientists has used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — a huge radio telescope in Chile — to unmask a supermassive black hole's extremely powerful magnetic field. The team, led by Ivan Marti-Vidal from the Onsala Space Observatory and Chalmers University of Technology, was therefore able to peer deep into the heart of the distant galaxy where the black hole lies, and see the region just light-days away from the behemoth.

"Our discovery is a giant leap in terms of observing frequency, thanks to the use of ALMA, and in terms of distance to the black hole where the magnetic field has been probed," said co--author Sebastien Muller, also from Onsala Space Observatory and Chalmers University of Technology, in a statement.

Supermassive black holes loom in the centers of the majority of massive galaxies. Some of these black holes, like the one in the Milky Way's center, lie dormant. Others (so-called quasars) actively chow down on gas, causing them to radiate like brilliant beacons of light. They can therefore be seen from across the universe.

More:
http://www.space.com/29122-black-hole-magnetic-field-alma-telescope.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=more-from-space

[center]

















Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)[/center]

[Mnemosyne]

1. Can't it take a photo? Would love to see that. Great photos of observatories and scopes! Thanks! nt

[lastlib]

2. Through earth's atmosphere, it would be almost worthless.

Even with the thin air of that high altitude, the atmospheric distortion would devalue any optical images it could get.

[Fumesucker]

4. ALMA is not an optical telescope, it's millimeter and submillimeter radio

The reason it has to be at high altitude is because those frequencies are absorbed by the water vapor in our atmosphere, it's in the Atacama desert because that's driest place on the planet.

[Mnemosyne]

6. But I can hope. Thanks last Lib! nt

[Fumesucker]

3. Kind of sorta

The color portion of this image is from the ALMA array, it's not actually a photo but a computer generated map of microwave radio emissions. This isn't the object they are talking about, just an image of some other object I found in a quick search

[Mnemosyne]

5. Thank you, Fumesucker. It's just so exciting! nt