Astronomers Just Zoomed Stunningly Close to The Event Horizon of Our Galaxy's Black Hole

[Judi Lynn]

Wowowowow.

MICHELLE STARR 25 MAY 2018

Telescopes around the world have joined forces to try to provide us with our first photograph of a black hole. That's still a few months off, at least, but all that staring at a black hole is already starting to produce results.

In 2013, the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) radio telescope in Chile joined the global telescope collective that makes up the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), to take observations of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

And it almost doubled the longest baseline length in the array, leading to observation of the finest details yet of the space right around the event horizon of this black hole.

Now, we can't actually see black holes. They're thought to be incredibly dense collapsed stars with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape - and if there's nothing coming out of them, we can't detect them.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/black-hole-event-horizon-structure-sagittarius-a-event-horizon-telescope

[lagomorph777]

1. Beautiful and inspiring!

Thanks for posting.

[SonofDonald]

2. You come up with the coolest stuff

So thank you again...

[yonder]

3. ditto on post #2, thanks

[lapfog_1]

4. And the Milky Way Galaxy may be much larger than previously thought.

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/milky-way-galaxy-may-be-much-bigger-we-thought-ncna876966

[raven mad]

5. Ok, why am I just getting to this at 2:22 a.m. Saturday???

Because I'm trying to find somewhere to move to, hubby had 2 medical appointments today and I made some great marinara.......


Judi Lynn, this is SO saved! Way better than Saturday morning cartoons (remember them?).