Posted on 04/05/2017 2:06:13 PM PDT by Red Badger
If Avery Broderick’s wishes come true, the next 10 days will bring something new to humanity’s view of the universe. For the first time, the University of Waterloo physicist says, there could be “visceral, direct evidence that there are monsters in the night.”
The monsters Dr. Broderick has in mind are supermassive black holes: terrifying giants that lurk in the hearts of galaxies, including our own, where they can devour stars and interstellar gas like cosmic vacuum cleaners.
Fortunately, Earth is in no danger of encountering such a lethal entity. The nearest one is at least 25,000 light years away from our solar system’s quiet celestial suburb. But astronomers have long known that something very dark and heavy is sitting at the galactic centre. Indirect evidence points to a black hole that is more than 30 times the sun’s diameter and a staggering 4.3 million times the sun’s mass. The extreme gravity of such a dense object would be enough to trap light as well as matter. Falling into it would be a one-way trip, even for a laser beam. (Hence the term “black hole.”)
Now, a team of scientists, including Dr. Broderick, is hoping to catch a glimpse of the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. Their aim is essentially to take a picture of its dark circular rim – the point of no return that physicists call the event horizon – in silhouette against the glowing gas that swirls around it. If the effort succeeds, it could provide a crucial test of Einstein’s general theory of relativity as well as offer a direct look at one of the most extreme environments in nature.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
There are no direct views of black holes.
This is 2017 - manufacturing evidence is perfectly acceptable, guys. Try Photoshop.
Funny.
It sounds to me like they are looking for the shadow.
Let’s hope the camera doesn’t get sucked in...
Seriously, though, I wonder where things (well, light mostly, I suppose) go after they disappear into a black hole. Do they become quasars?
I’m not a scientist and took my “Physics for Poets” class decades ago in college. :)
Holly: Well, the thing about a black hole - its main distinguishing feature - is it’s black. And the thing about space, the colour of space, your basic space colour, is black. So how are you supposed to see them?
Rimmer: But five of them? . How can you manage to miss five black holes?
Holly: It’s always the way, innit? You hang around for three million years in deep space and there hasn’t been one, then all of a sudden five turn up at once.
For those holding their breath:
“Last to arrive will be the data from the South Pole, which is just entering the long, dark winter season and where planes will not arrive to pick it up until November.
At the earliest, then, it will likely be December before the team knows exactly what it has. If they have succeeded, the first direct image of a black hole’s event horizon will come soon after that.”
winner
They get squished into an unimaginably small spot. The spaces between atoms’ nuclei and their orbiting electrons becomes nonexistent, so that they lose all identity as elements. They just become ‘mass’ in it’s purest form........................
Looks like it's moving to Vegas.
In 3 years..................
Calcutta?
what’s that from?
“Visceral, direct evidence that there are monsters in the night”, said a peer reviewed scientist who wanted to be taken seriusly.
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