Lengthening the baselines increases the resolution, allowing scientists to see smaller details. If more telescopes can join the EHT project, then the baselines linking observatories can increase in number and length. The distance between the telescopes, which scientists call the 'baseline,' is equivalent to the aperture of a normal telescope. The Event Horizon Telescope operates through Very Long Baseline Interferometry, a technique that pairs off telescopes. Seven observatories collaborated to image M87's black hole with the addition of the South Pole Telescope, eight observatories took part in imaging Sagittarius A*. "Our next step will be to make polarized images of Sagittarius A*, so that we can see the magnetic fields near the black hole and see how they're dragged by the black hole itself," Michael Johnson, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said during the NSF news conference.Īnother step will sharpen the EHT's view of black holes.
The EHT has already measured the level of polarization in the light from M87's gas disk, which tells astronomers about the strength and direction of magnetic fields wrapped up in the disk, possibly emanating from the black hole itself. "That's huge for being able to pick up short-term flaring," Ryan Hickox, an astrophysicist at Dartmouth College, told .Īlthough we shouldn't expect any movies of Sagittarius A* anytime soon, there's plenty more to observe there in the meantime. With agile observing, the EHT will be able to follow up with the flick of a switch should astronomers spot an outburst in M87 or even on Sagittarius A*. Observing such outbursts requires rapid follow-up, which the EHT has so far been unable to do, given the logistics of arranging time on the telescopes and setting up the necessary equipment. Occasionally, black holes experience an outburst as they tear apart an asteroid or a gas cloud that has wandered too close. Because M87's black hole is so huge, changes in its gas ring take weeks or months to become apparent, allowing movies to be captured at a more stately pace.Īgile observing has other benefits. Because Sagittarius A* is much smaller, changes occur much more quickly as gas whips around the black hole - too quickly for sporadic observing by the EHT to track.
The M87 black hole's sheer size actually helps when it comes to making movies. The gas ring imaged around Sagittarius A* could fit inside the orbit of Mercury, the radius of which is about 36 million miles (58 million kilometers) while the black hole in M87 could easily encompass the orbits of all the planets in the solar system. Despite its great distance, that black hole actually appears on the sky at a similar size to Sagittarius A* because it is much larger.
#Black hole movie movie#
The first movie star will be the black hole in M87, an elliptical galaxy at the heart of the Virgo galaxy cluster, 54.5 million light-years away from Earth. Milky Way vs M87: Event Horizon Telescope photos show 2 very different monster black holes "You make your observations, and then can go back and do their other science the rest of the time," Fish said during the NSF news conference.Īlthough these agile observations will begin in 2024, EHT scientists will need a few years to process the data into a movie using the imaging techniques Bouman described. Vincent Fish, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Haystack Observatory, describes the approach as agile observing.
#Black hole movie free#
That capability will allow scientists to make use of free time on the telescopes over a long period, rather than an observing campaign lasting a week or two. To meet the challenge, engineers are implementing technical improvements so that by 2024, EHT astronomers will be able to switch observations on and off. So scientists need more data before a video is feasible, but capturing that data takes a lot of time, and the telescopes that make up the EHT project have other observing programs to complete. "We saw that although there was something interesting there, the data that we currently have doesn't constrain that movie enough in order to say something that we're really confident about." "We developed algorithms that allowed us to make movies, and applied these to the data," she added.
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