12/27/2023 0 Comments Diffraction definition spoonThe brightest region is toward the center of the galaxy, and deep within it is the black hole of interest, as big as a large star but incredibly small in this image. Left: the Milky Way as seen in the night sky we see our galaxy from within, and so cannot see its spiral shape directly. the immense but much more distant back hole at the center of M87 (a spectacularly big star-megalopolis.).the large and `close’ black hole at the center of the Milky Way (the giant star-city we call home), and.Central galactic black holes are millions or even billions of times larger! The ones being observed are The initial plan behind the so-called “Event Horizon Telescope” (the name deserves some discussion see below) has been to make images of two black holes at the centers of galaxies (the star-cities in which most stars are found.) These are not black holes formed by the collapse of individual stars, such as the ones whose collisions have been observed through their gravitational waves. I’ll try to be clear about when I’m on the edge of my knowledge, and hopefully won’t make any blunders At the moment, I’m still learning about the more subtle issues. As I’m increasingly concerned that many non-experts will be unable to understand what is presented tomorrow, and what the pictures do and do not mean, I’m using this post to answer a few questions that many readers (and many of these writers) have perhaps not thought to ask.Ī caution: I am not an expert on this subject. Over the last days I’ve been reading what both scientists and science journalists are writing in advance of the press conference Wednesday morning, and I’m finding many examples of jargon masquerading as English, terms poorly defined, and phrasing that seems likely to mislead. The goal of this post is to provide readers with what I hope will be a helpful guide through the foggy swamp that is likely to partly obscure this major scientific result. I was told that this incredible feat would likely be achieved by 2020. Among the many enjoyable discussions, one I was particularly excited about - as much as an amateur as a professional - was that in which I learned of the plan to make some sort of image of a black hole. About fifteen years ago, when I was a professor at the University of Washington, the particle physics theorists and the astronomer theorists occasionally would arrange to have lunch together, to facilitate an informal exchange of information about our adjacent fields.
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