from the 100-million-TikTok-videos-can't-be-wrong dept.
We finally have an image of the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way:
Astronomers announced May 12 that they have finally assembled an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
"This image shows a bright ring surrounding the darkness, the telltale sign of the shadow of the black hole," astrophysicist Feryal Özel of the University of Arizona in Tucson said at a news conference announcing the result.
The black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, appears as a faint silhouette amidst the glowing material that surrounds it. The image reveals the turbulent, twisting region immediately surrounding the black hole in new detail. The findings also were published May 12 in 6 studies in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
[...] . By combining about 3.5 petabytes of data, or the equivalent of about 100 million TikTok videos, captured in April 2017, researchers could begin to piece together the picture. To tease out an image from the initial massive jumble of data, the EHT team needed years of work, complicated computer simulations and observations in various types of light from other telescopes.
[...] . This won't be the last eye-catching image of Sgr A* from EHT. Additional observations, made in 2018, 2021 and 2022, are still waiting to be analyzed.
"This is our closest supermassive black hole," Haggard says. "It is like our closest friend and neighbor. And we've been studying it for years as a community. [This image is a] really profound addition to this exciting black hole we've all kind of fallen in love with in our careers."
Journal Reference:
Six papers in ApJ Lett, 2022
See also:
Wits scientists in the team that made the first image of the black hole in the centre of our galaxy
Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy
Groundbreaking image of black hole Sagittarius A* enhanced by UTSA physics professor Richard Anantua's research
First Image of the Beastly Black Hole at the Heart of Our Galaxy
Sagittarius A* Revealed
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:31AM (3 children)
It's underwhelming.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:54AM
If you understood, or at least barely comprehended, the Galactic forces behind this image, you would cease to be underwhelmed. Gravitational forces of orders of magnitude greater than we can imagine, speeds approaching the speed of light! Free tacos on Tuesdays! This is like if you took Runaway's ignorance, and multiplied it by itself, and then did the recursive analysis up to the asshole event horizon, and met it coming back. Beyond the comprehension of mere Arkansasians.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by alabaster_crone on Tuesday May 17 2022, @06:44AM
Sounds what either a anti-vaxxer, or a member of the Insane Clown Posse would say. Anti-science, much?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @12:00PM
Apparently the black hole at the middle of the galaxy looks like a popover advertising t-shirts.
Bowman: "My god, it's full of advertising"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:39AM (1 child)
It was bad enough when we had to measure distance or area in football fields. Now are are measuring data size in TikTok videos? I weep for the future.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ingar on Tuesday May 17 2022, @08:55AM
Huge data set are traditionally measured in Libraries of Congress.
I guess the young generation doesn't read books any more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @06:11AM (4 children)
My desktop background image of the last few years must have traveled back in time somehow. I guess this is just one of those weird time distortions you apparently get when dealing with black holes...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @06:17AM (3 children)
Wrong hole
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:40AM (2 children)
Yeah, that's what she said... but I still buggered on :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @12:37PM (1 child)
I could see you getting the "Funny" mod, or even "Troll" or "Offtopic", but "Interesting"???
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday May 18 2022, @01:39AM
Perhaps they would like to subscribe to his newsletter?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @10:28AM
>> To tease out an image from the initial massive jumble of data, the EHT team needed years of work, complicated computer simulations and observations in various types of light from other telescopes.
In other words this is another graphics artist's rendition intended to secure more funding for useless projects. Not real science, nothing to see here, move along...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 17 2022, @12:59PM
Looking at the image in TFA, I hereby dub it "The Devil's Anus."
Washington DC delenda est.