Razi Canikligil-NEW YORK Turkish professor Feryal Özel is one of the members of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration which on April 10 announced a milestone in astrophysics: The first-ever photo of a black hole. “This has been our first chance to see the inner workings of black holes and to test a fundamental prediction of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. Not only the existence of a shadow that indicates a point of no return — or an event horizon — but also the size and shape of that shadow,” Özel, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona, told ABC News on April 10. “It’s a dream come true, on many levels,” Özel said. “Something I’ve been working on for many, many years, trying to build a physical model of a black hole environment and predictions, and the opportunity to study the hearts of black holes is amazing. This kind of resolution in astronomy is unprecedented. This is up to a … [Read more...] about Turkish woman professor among scientists who revealed first photo of black hole
Study of black holes
EU simultaneously unveils first ever image of black hole
Simultaneously with other six across the world, the European Commission held here a press conferences Wednesday afternoon to unveil the first image of a black hole as a significant breakthrough discovery in astronomy. The image shows a donut-like structure with a dark central region and a bright ring, which is the black hole’s shadow against a disc of glowing gas that falls onto the black hole. With a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun, the black hole is at the heart of the distant galaxy M87, 55 million light-years away. The image provides the strongest evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes and opens a new window on the study of black holes, their event horizons, and gravity. “The history of man and of science will be divided into the time before the image and the time after the image. Black holes are stranger than anything dreamed up by science fiction writers, but they are firmly matters of science fact,” said European Commissioner … [Read more...] about EU simultaneously unveils first ever image of black hole
Astronomers capture first image of black hole
"We have taken the first picture of a black hole," said Sheperd Doeleman, Event Horizon Telescope project director. "This is an extraordinary scientific feat accomplished by a team of more than 200 researchers." The bright ring of orange is formed as light bends in the intense gravity surrounding the black hole, according to EHT project. It is some 6.5 billion times bigger than the sun in our solar system and is located at the centre of the Messier 87 galaxy. Black holes are created by the death of large stars, collapsing in on themselves as the core becomes unstable and the outer layers are blown away. The presence of black holes is thought to affect the space environment in strange ways – warping spacetime and super-heating any nearby material. The EHT project succeed in capturing the photo by using an array of eight telescopes dotted across the globe. The observations were achieved by synchronising the telescope facilities and accounting for the rotation of the earth. The … [Read more...] about Astronomers capture first image of black hole
Scientists unveil first image of black hole in all its dark glory
DUMMY COPY --- DO NOT POST A. A century after Einstein's equations predicted the existence of black holes, a virtual telescope the size of planet Earth has captured the first direct image of a black hole, or rather the mysterious region defined by the hole's event horizon, the point beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape, astronomers announced Wednesday. "We have seen what we thought was unseeable," said Shep Doeleman, a radio astronomer at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and director of the Event Horizon Telescope project. "We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole." The target was an enormous 6.5-billion-solar-mass black hole in the core of M-87, a giant elliptical galaxy about 55 million light years away in the constellation Virgo. The black hole's six-and-a-half billion solar masses are crammed into a region about the size of a solar system. A familiar target for amateur astronomers, M-87 is one of the brightest radio sources in the … [Read more...] about Scientists unveil first image of black hole in all its dark glory
Scientists to announce “groundbreaking result” in black hole telescope project
Astronomers say a major announcement is on the way based on findings from the international Event Horizon Telescope project, which experts believe could be the first-ever photographs to show the surroundings of a black hole. On Wednesday, April 10, the Event Horizon Telescope team will be holding multiple press conferences around the world to announce a "groundbreaking result" in their study of black hole environments. The Event Horizon Telescope is an international collaboration that aims to capture images of black hole areas by linking up various radio dishes from around the world that together create a virtual telescope roughly the size of planet Earth. The project began capturing data in 2006. Scientists from the U.S., France, and the Netherlands will be making their announcement Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C, while related press conferences will occur simultaneously in Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei, and Tokyo. By creating a massive … [Read more...] about Scientists to announce “groundbreaking result” in black hole telescope project