The first-ever photograph of a black hole might be unveiled this week

[Granada]

This will be exciting to watch: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-07/black-hole-first-ever-photograph-could-be-unveiled-this-week/10979244


Live announcement takes place UTC - 4hrs, so 11pm Wed night Melbourne time. Here is the link for the live stream: https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/blackholes/

[xelasnave]

I am looking forward to this.
But it cant be photographed really but the surrounding areas tell tales will be great to see.
Alex

[billdan]

ABC News has just shown an image of the black hole inside the giant elliptical galaxy M87 in Virgo.
Taken by the Event Horizon Array of radio telescopes, there is supposed to be an image of Sgr A (Milky Way black hole) coming up soon as well.


https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-04-10/black-hole-event-horizon-telescope-announcement-astrophysics/10989534

[alpal]

I saw it on channel 7 news this morning -
the black hole inside M87.
What an amazing picture.

[Slawomir]

That's very interesting, thank you for sharing.

[lazjen]

Size comparison: https://xkcd.com/2135/

[LewisM]

So, is it a torus shape - absolutely what I thought it should look like (unlike the "Saturnesque" Hoolyweird renditions)?

Well, it seems to be a torus to me, and would make sense in terms of physics.

[glend]

Allan Duffy gave a good description on ABC news this morning, and yes to us, from our perspective it looks like a torus. The difference in brightness is caused by matter in the event horizon appearing to move towards us in the spin cycle, with the darker areas moving away from us.
Allan also mentioned that Sagitarius A was tried but it was too messy to get a clear image, which I take it meant that the perspective did not favour trying. They have Sag A data so maybe in the future we will see it as well.

[Sunfish]

https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/astronomers-reveal-first-ever-image-black-hole.html

[Stonius]

I cant figure this out; so we're looking at a disc that presents face on to us, but the polar jets we see are are also extending laterally?
An equitorial torus would make sense, but a pole to pole torus?
Or is it a gas shell that just appears denser at the edges.

Markus

[Sunfish]

Are we almost looking straight down the cone of the beam?

[Stonius]

True, maybe those jets are more on-axis than I thought...

[bojan]

Maybe this link may help to claryfy what we are looking at on this picture:
https://youtu.be/zUyH3XhpLTo

[croweater]

Thanks for the very helpful link Bojan. I just have to watch it a couple more times for it to sink right in. :) Cheers, Richard.

[Sunfish]

Thanks Bojan.
A lot going on there that the Europeans did not go into.

[Stonius]

Ah yes, that makes sense.

Answer to my question at the following time
https://youtu.be/zUyH3XhpLTo?t=398

[StephenV]

I don't know why they have to do the publicity generating pre-announcement, why not just release the image straight away?

[julianh72]

I think the pre-release hype actually worked. When was the last time an astronomical photograph got the sort of main-stream media interest that the Black Hole photo did?

[xelasnave]

Promotion of this wonderful achievement is intense and expected giving the push to elevate gravity wave astronomy as the cutting edge.

Look at the stirred up controversy re the lady partly responsible for the key algorithm and the gossip type nonsence getting air time. All irrelevant but perfect to draw attention from folk who would never have given black holes a passing glance.

The promotion has been expertly managed and I suspect part of a bigger picture to attract research funds to GR in general.

Meanwhile science benefits from the hustle to popularise black holes.

But what we need for all this stuff is competing research teams so one can review the work of the other...if not for the space race we never would have put men on the Moon..and such an approach not only would double the available jobs for scientists but also have competitors seeking to get a better result than the most recent produced by their competitor.

Still all funding is best directed to building battle stars so we can involve the military budget☺
Alex