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posted by CoolHand on Monday June 27 2016, @04:12AM   Printer-friendly

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

A European team of astronomers have used the new GRAVITY instrument at ESO's Very Large Telescope to obtain exciting observations of the centre of the Milky Way by combining light from all four of the 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes for the first time. These results provide a taste of the groundbreaking science that GRAVITY will produce as it probes the extremely strong gravitational fields close to the central supermassive black hole and tests Einstein's general relativity.

In short, there's a 15 solar-mass star in an elliptical orbit around the 4-million-solar-mass black hole in Sagittarius A* that, in 2018, will approach to within 17 light-hours (3 times the distance from the Sun to Pluto) and will be traveling at 2.5% of the speed of light.

Source: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1622/

This is an amazing instrument; see the Animation of the path of a light ray through GRAVITY. For more information on the instrument, see GRAVITY — The second generation VLTI instrument for precision narrow-angle astrometry and interferometric imaging.

This is an ambitious project, its Science Objectives are:

GRAVITY will carry out the ultimate empirical test to show whether or not the Galactic Centre harbours a black hole (BH) of four million solar masses and will finally decide if the near-infrared flares from Sgr A* originate from individual hot spots close to the last stable orbit, from statistical fluctuations in the inner accretion zone or from a jet. If the current hot-spot interpretation of the near-infrared (NIR) flares is correct, GRAVITY has the potential to directly determine the spacetime metric around this BH. GRAVITY may even be able to test the theory of general relativity in the presently unexplored strong field limit. GRAVITY will also be able to unambiguously detect intermediate mass BHs, if they exist. It will dynamically measure the masses of supermassive BHs (SMBHs) in many active galactic nuclei, and probe the physics of their mass accretion, outflow and jets with unprecedented resolution. Furthermore, GRAVITY will explore young stellar objects, their circumstellar discs and jets, and measure the properties of binary stars and exoplanet systems. In short, GRAVITY will enable dynamical measurements in an unexplored regime.

[Update] Also covered at Ars Technica .


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @04:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @04:22AM (#366318)

    You call that exploration? Peering though spyglasses! That's not exploration. Build ships and send pioneers. Build ships and crew them with the unwanted unemployed people who can't find anything useful to do on Earth. Send people to explore the galaxy.

    "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @05:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @05:08AM (#366329)

    What an awesome animation! Definitely worth watching.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @05:27AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @05:27AM (#366333)

      So awesome! And why even bother building a real GRAVITY instrument when making a movie about a fake GRAVITY instrument would bring in an equal amount of funding?! Think of the potential for embezzlement!!!!! FOR SCIENCE!!!!!!!!1!11ONE

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Monday June 27 2016, @05:48AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday June 27 2016, @05:48AM (#366337) Journal

    From the black-hole-ate-my-dept.-line dept.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @05:50AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @05:50AM (#366339)

      I know what you're doing, I see it all too clear
      I only taste the saline when I kiss away your tears
      You really had me going, wishing on a star
      But the black holes that surround you are heavier by far
      I believed in your confusion, you were so completely torn
      Well it must have been that yesterday was the day that I was born
      There's not much to examine, there's nothing left to hide
      You really can't be serious if you had to ask me why
      I say goodbye...

      'Cause I am barely breathing
      And I can't find the air
      I don't know who I'm kidding
      Imagining you care
      And I could stand here waiting
      A fool for another day
      But I don't suppose it's worth the price, worth the price
      The price that I would pay

      Everyone keeps asking, what's it all about?
      I used to be so certain and I can't figure out
      What is this attraction? I only feel the pain
      There's nothing left to reason and only you to blame
      Will it ever change?

      'Cause I am barely breathing
      And I can't find the air
      I don't know who I'm kidding

      Imagining you care
      And I could stand here waiting
      A fool for another day
      But I don't suppose it's worth the price, worth the price
      The price that I would pay
      But I'm thinking it over anyway...

      I've come to find
      I may never know
      Your changing mind
      Is it friend or foe?

      I rise above
      Or sink below
      With every time
      You come and go
      Please don't come and go

      'Cause I am barely breathing
      And I can't find the air
      I don't know who I'm kidding
      Imagining you care
      And I could stand here waiting
      A fool for another day
      But I don't suppose it's worth the price, worth the price
      The price that I would pay
      But I'm thinking it over anyway

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @05:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @05:53AM (#366340)

      Something always brings me back to you
      It never takes too long
      No matter what I say or do
      I still feel you here 'til the moment I'm gone

      You hold me without touch
      You keep me without chains
      I never wanted anything so much
      Than to drown in your love and not feel your rain

      Set me free, leave me be
      I don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity
      Here I am and I stand so tall
      I'm just the way I'm supposed to be
      But you're on to me and all over me

      You loved me 'cause I'm fragile
      When I thought that I was strong
      But you touch me for a little while
      And all my fragile strength is gone

      Set me free, leave me be

      I don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity
      Here I am and I stand so tall
      I'm just the way I'm supposed to be
      But you're on to me and all over me

      I live here on my knees
      As I try to make you see
      That you're everything I think I need
      Here on the ground

      But you're neither friend nor foe
      Though I can't seem to let you go
      The one thing that I still know
      Is that you're keeping me down
      You're keeping me down

      You're on to me, on to me and all over
      Something always brings me back to you
      It never takes too long

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @06:01AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @06:01AM (#366341)

    This is great!

    Hopefully in time we can get some high res videos over a longer period of time and figure out why current imagery of the fast orbiting stars near the galactic black hole do not exhibit gravitational lensing... You know, because if there really is a giant gravitational force there it should warp space time and cause lensing. Right? The current set of video showing the path of the stars at the galactic center took over a decade to gather.

    What's most exciting to a real scientist is not verifying a claim from current theory, but when oddities invalidate the old theories and reveal new areas of understanding to explore with new theories to discover.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @06:14AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @06:14AM (#366348)

      Finally we can test theories? The Unabomber was right all along...

      89. The same is true of scientists generally. With possible rare exceptions, their motive is neither curiosity nor a desire to benefit humanity but the need to go through the power process: to have a goal (a scientific problem to solve), to make an effort (research) and to attain the goal (solution of the problem). Science is a surrogate activity because scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get out of the work itself.

      90. Of course, it’s not that simple. Other motives do play a role for many scientists. Money and status for example. Some scientists may be persons of the type who have an insatiable drive for status (see paragraph 79) and this may provide much of the motivation for their work. No doubt the majority of scientists, like the majority of the general population, are more or less susceptible to advertising and marketing techniques and need money to satisfy their craving for goods and services. Thus science is not a pure surrogate activity. But it is in large part a surrogate activity.

      91. Also, science and technology constitute a powerful mass movement, and many scientists gratify their need for power through identification with this mass movement. (See paragraph 83.)

      92. Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday June 27 2016, @06:05AM

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Monday June 27 2016, @06:05AM (#366344)

    From TFS:

    In short, there's a 15 solar-mass star in an elliptical orbit around the 4-million-solar-mass black hole in Sagittarius* that, in 2018, will approach to within 17 light-hours (3 times the distance from the Sun to Pluto) and will be traveling at 2.5% of the speed of light.

    Me:
    "Holy sh*t that is close!"
    From TFA:

    This early indication of success does not come a moment too soon. In 2018 the S2 star will be at its closest to the black hole, just 17 light-hours away from it and travelling at almost 30 million kilometres per hour, or 2.5% of the speed of light. At this distance the effects due to general relativity will be most pronounced and GRAVITY observations will yield their most important results [3]. This opportunity will not be repeated for another 16 years.

    I guess 2.5% the speed of light should have been a clue.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday June 27 2016, @07:17AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday June 27 2016, @07:17AM (#366357) Homepage
      It's not completely unique, either, there's a swarm of stars fizzing around the black hole according to their earlier observations, this just has a particularly short period and close approach, but they should be able to learn from any and all of those stars.
      https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso0846e/
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @06:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @06:03PM (#366524)

    Watch the video. The light is reflected numerous times and even runs through fiber optic cables. The losses must be huge. Keeping it all aligned to a small fraction of a wavelength looks hopeless.

    • (Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Monday June 27 2016, @08:46PM

      by mrchew1982 (3565) on Monday June 27 2016, @08:46PM (#366614)

      That's what I thought too, but then again I have to trust that legions of phd's know much better than I...