Black Hole

bianchimoon

What an amazing picture/ achievement to get it

Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy.
It measures 40 billion km across - three million times the size of the Earth - and has been described by scientists as "a monster".
The black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world.
Details have been published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Prof Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who proposed the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87.
"What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System," he said.
"It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exist. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe."

laurentian

Amazing and mind blowing stuff - now that we can photograph one, what benefit will it be to humankind in the future?

Lagrange

...good question and I guess it would be the roll out of the technology used to make the measurements to beneficial applications..

Black holes are no use. I've got one - it does bggr all.

kingstongraham

Don't look at it on TV - I've seen that film

Darius_Jedburgh

BBC4 tonight has a programme all about them.

Lagrange

..royal mint has a new coin about them..

capt_slog

Lagrange wrote:

..royal mint has a new coin about them..

Here's one....

crumbschief

Or it could be a pic of Mr Wilson after a night out.

Stevo_666

crumbschief wrote:

Or it could be a pic of Mr Wilson after a night out.

Although on a more serious note the distances, dimensions and masses involved are just mind blowing.

mr_goo

It's a very out of focus photo of a Krispy Kreme donut on the toilet floor at Fleet Services.

david7m

What a total waste of money

orraloon

That's a Smiley. 80s rave was on it. #BombTheBass.

robert88

david7m wrote:

What a total waste of money

That's what black holes

Stevo 666 wrote:

crumbschief wrote:

Or it could be a pic of Mr Wilson after a night out.

Although on a more serious note the distances, dimensions and masses involved are just mind blowing.

Not compared to a Tory brexit.

Stevo_666

Robert88 wrote:

david7m wrote:

What a total waste of money

That's what black holes

Stevo 666 wrote:

crumbschief wrote:

Or it could be a pic of Mr Wilson after a night out.

Although on a more serious note the distances, dimensions and masses involved are just mind blowing.

Not compared to a Tory brexit.

Yawn - keep it for the other thread.

awavey

Libera te tutemet ex inferis... surprised that hasnt been doing the rounds more today...or are people more of the "Increase power to maximum. We are going THROUGH! "

rjsterry

awavey wrote:

Libera te tutemet ex inferis... surprised that hasnt been doing the rounds more today...or are people more of the "Increase power to maximum. We are going THROUGH! "

There is no way you are going through. It's mind-blowingly dense.

What I didn't know was that the idea of a body so massive that its gravity prevented light from escaping was proposed in 1784.

robert88

Wonderful as it to investigate black holes light years away, I do wonder how it could aid our own predicament on planet Earth. As a species the parameters within which we can survive are mind-blowingly minute.

Perhaps the physics might help us but if so, no one has pointed out how.

rolf_f

Mr Goo wrote:

It's a very out of focus photo of a Krispy Kreme donut on the toilet floor at Fleet Services.

Yep. Rubbish photo. If I'd have taken it I'd have probably deleted it directly from the camera!

Ben6899

Stevo 666 wrote:

crumbschief wrote:

Or it could be a pic of Mr Wilson after a night out.

Although on a more serious note the distances, dimensions and masses involved are just mind blowing.

Agreed. Totally incomprehensible.

robert88

Rolf F wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

It's a very out of focus photo of a Krispy Kreme donut on the toilet floor at Fleet Services.

Yep. Rubbish photo. If I'd have taken it I'd have probably deleted it directly from the camera!

It's exactly how my last eclipse photo looked. I have no idea how they could have got hold of it but that's t'internet for you.

laurentian

Don't know if anyone else watched the programme on BBC4 last night about this project? I found it very interesting how the computer generated simulation, made months before the actual imaging, was so similar the final image that they made.

In terms of what this project can give us in the future, it was said that the process by which they got the image opens up a whole new area of possibilities with regard to cosmic investigation.

The young lady who nailed the imaging process was a joy to watch.

capt_slog

laurentian wrote:

Don't know if anyone else watched the programme on BBC4 last night about this project?.

I found it odd that they had to rely on good weather. I'd always thought that one point of a radio telescope was that it didn't need clear sky.

laurentian

Capt Slog wrote:

laurentian wrote:

Don't know if anyone else watched the programme on BBC4 last night about this project?.

I found it odd that they had to rely on good weather. I'd always thought that one point of a radio telescope was that it didn't need clear sky.

I have read that thermal microwave emissions from clouds are picked up by receivers and contribute to "noise". I suppose that, when "looking" over vast distances, a little "local" noise can cause big issues with calculations . . . I guess there must be a reason why these telescopes are always in very high, isolated places to minimise such things

rjsterry

Just been reading this bit on the Wikipedia Black Hole page.

Observers falling into a Schwarzschild black hole (i.e., non-rotating and not charged) cannot avoid being carried into the singularity, once they cross the event horizon. They can prolong the experience by accelerating away to slow their descent, but only up to a limit.[89] When they reach the singularity, they are crushed to infinite density and their mass is added to the total of the black hole. Before that happens, they will have been torn apart by the growing tidal forces in a process sometimes referred to as spaghettification or the "noodle effect".

shirley_basso

rjsterry wrote:

Just been reading this bit on the Wikipedia Black Hole page.

Observers falling into a Schwarzschild black hole (i.e., non-rotating and not charged) cannot avoid being carried into the singularity, once they cross the event horizon. They can prolong the experience by accelerating away to slow their descent, but only up to a limit.[89] When they reach the singularity, they are crushed to infinite density and their mass is added to the total of the black hole. Before that happens, they will have been torn apart by the growing tidal forces in a process sometimes referred to as spaghettification or the "noodle effect".

Something to dwell on before you shut your eyes before sleep

rjsterry

Shirley Basso wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Just been reading this bit on the Wikipedia Black Hole page.

Observers falling into a Schwarzschild black hole (i.e., non-rotating and not charged) cannot avoid being carried into the singularity, once they cross the event horizon. They can prolong the experience by accelerating away to slow their descent, but only up to a limit.[89] When they reach the singularity, they are crushed to infinite density and their mass is added to the total of the black hole. Before that happens, they will have been torn apart by the growing tidal forces in a process sometimes referred to as spaghettification or the "noodle effect".

Something to dwell on before you shut your eyes before sleep

It takes your mind off contemplating the eventual heat death of the universe

Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

Shirley Basso wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Just been reading this bit on the Wikipedia Black Hole page.

Observers falling into a Schwarzschild black hole (i.e., non-rotating and not charged) cannot avoid being carried into the singularity, once they cross the event horizon. They can prolong the experience by accelerating away to slow their descent, but only up to a limit.[89] When they reach the singularity, they are crushed to infinite density and their mass is added to the total of the black hole. Before that happens, they will have been torn apart by the growing tidal forces in a process sometimes referred to as spaghettification or the "noodle effect".

Something to dwell on before you shut your eyes before sleep

It takes your mind off contemplating the eventual heat death of the universe

It doesn't bother me too much, even if I thought that we weren't eventually headed for the 'big crunch' - who knows. Here's a good one to put the size thing into perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaGEjrADGPA