Event Horizon Telescope - announcement of discovery to be made Thursday 12th May

[Zermelo]

https://www.space.com/event-horizon-telescope-milky-way-discovery-webcasts

Might be worth a look.

I'm just hoping that :
(a) it's not another "this is the sound of ..." announcement
(b) it doesn't involve phosphine

[Malpi12]

On 10/05/2022 at 14:51, Zermelo said:

(a) 
(b)

Thanks for the headsup,

It is (c) a pic of "our"  black hole   SgrA*

Link to the EHT site https://eventhorizontelescope.org/

 and it also features on BBC science at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61412463
 

Edited May 12 by Malpi12

[DaveS]

Inevitably

 

[robin_astro]

So.. from the press conference I picked up that we see the spinning black hole ~face on (even though we live ~ in the plane of the milky way) and the spin is in the opposite direction to the orbiting  accreting material.  This seems quite surprising to me. I perhaps naively expected everything to be in the same plane

[Iem1]

This would have been handy 3 - 4 days ago, BEFORE I had submitted my final year dissertation/project titled 'The motion of stars around Sagittarius A*'  

Still, I am due to present a presentation on my project to some of the Postgrad students next week, this will most definitely be making an appearance! Wonderful timing!

[saac]

6 hours ago, robin_astro said:

So.. from the press conference I picked up that we see the spinning black hole ~face on (even though we live ~ in the plane of the milky way) and the spin is in the opposite direction to the orbiting  accreting material.  This seems quite surprising to me. I perhaps naively expected everything to be in the same plane

I may be wrong on this but I think from the previous imaging of the first black hole (2019 in M87) the image was explained whereby light from the far side (out of our line of sight) of the excretion disc is warped around the central shadow region.  So the image may be such that we are not looking directly at it in the same plane of rotation as the excretion disc.    Now, having said all that, I may be completely wrong - it does happen from time to time (a lot)  

Jim

Black Hole Visualisation 2019 (M87)

image source  astronomy.com

 

 

Edited May 12 by saac

[robin_astro]

19 hours ago, saac said:

So the image may be such that we are not looking directly at it in the same plane of rotation as the excretion disc. 

I was going by  what was  said though rather than the appearance in the image. There was  also a comment on the jet (if there is one) being difficult to detect as, unlike the one in M87 this would be in the plane of our galaxy.  Anyone got a link to the original press conference? I cant find it at the original address

Robin

[saac]

29 minutes ago, robin_astro said:

I was going by  what was  said though rather than the appearance in the image. There was  also a comment on the jet (if there is one) being difficult to detect as, unlike the one in M87 this would be in the plane of our galaxy.  Anyone got a link to the original press conference? I cant find it at the original address

Robin

Robin this may be useful.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2208-eht-mw/

And the referenced 6 papers.

https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2041-8205/page/Focus_on_First_Sgr_A_Results

 

Jim 

Edited May 13 by saac

[Astro Noodles]

I'm not as impressed by the image as I probably should be. After the astonishing M87 image, I suppose I was expecting something with more definition. This image leaves me with the feeling that it's one they rushed out and snapped through a gap in the clouds - even though it took 5 years to process.

[Alien 13]

5 minutes ago, Astro Noodles said:

I'm not as impressed by the image as I probably should be. After the astonishing M87 image, I suppose I was expecting something with more definition. This image leaves me with the feeling that it's one they rushed out and snapped through a gap in the clouds - even though it took 5 years to process.

I agree.

Alan

[markse68]

yes it's a bit disappointing after that astonishing and terrifying Meerkat radio image of the surroundings, but it does sound like it's a very difficult thing to image

 

[robin_astro]

S&T  picked up on our black hole being "on its side" so I did hear right. Apparently this is not unusual with supermassive black holes in the centre of galaxies, with low accretion rates like ours having a wide range of orientations, assumed to be the result of their formation from merged smaller black holes. (Any with jets in the galactic plane must be interesting places to live !)

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/astronomers-unveil-image-of-the-milky-ways-central-black-hole/?utm_source=cc&utm_medium=newsletter

Cheers 

Robin

[DaveS]

Not had a chance to watch this fully, as I was watching a live rocket launch at the time.

 

 

[The Lazy Astronomer]

So from a quick read of the BBC article, it's been a difficult job to process because it changes frequently. Sounds like they need a bit of Winjupos derotation - anyone got a number for the research team, I'll give them the heads up

[Stu]

16 hours ago, Astro Noodles said:

I'm not as impressed by the image as I probably should be. After the astonishing M87 image, I suppose I was expecting something with more definition. This image leaves me with the feeling that it's one they rushed out and snapped through a gap in the clouds - even though it took 5 years to process.

Really? Why should it be any better defined when it appears the same size in the sky as the M87 black hole ie it is much closer but also much smaller?

https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2208-eht-mwe/
 

Sometimes it’s perhaps easy to forget just how difficult and complex this stuff is to do! Not long ago we would not have thought it possible, now we are disappointed with the images. Seems strange.

[saac]

2 hours ago, DaveS said:

Not had a chance to watch this fully, as I was watching a live rocket launch at the time.

 

 

Dr Becky Smethurst really is an excellent communicator.  I hope it is not too long before we see her presenting her own documentaries.

 

PS watch all the way to the end - the out-takes are quite funny! 

Jim  

Edited May 14 by saac

[DaveS]

Yes, I'm subscribed to her channel, but it was getting on a bit when I finished watching the rocket launch so just shut down the TV without looking to see what else might have come up on YT.

[Paz]

16 hours ago, markse68 said:

yes it's a bit disappointing after that astonishing and terrifying Meerkat radio image of the surroundings, but it does sound like it's a very difficult thing to image

 

I have never heard of Meerkat before, I've just looked it up, very interesting!

[Astro Noodles]

27 minutes ago, Stu said:

Really? Why should it be any better defined when it appears the same size in the sky as the M87 black hole ie it is much closer but also much smaller?

https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2208-eht-mwe/
 

Sometimes it’s perhaps easy to forget just how difficult and complex this stuff is to do! Not long ago we would not have thought it possible, now we are disappointed with the images. Seems strange.

It's ok Stu, Dr Becky has explained it all to me and added some perspective and context.  Just need a bit of poetry from Prof. Cox now.

So perhaps it is Sag A* which is less impressive than I had imagined it would be.

I don't like the idea that we might be staring down the barrel of a supermassive black hole - no matter how unimpressive I might think it looks.