Nityananda, Rajaram
(2019)
A black hole finally (un) seen in the centre of a galaxy : the sharpest image ever.
Resonance: Journal of Science Education, 24 (5).
pp. 517-527.
ISSN 0973-712X
Abstract
The uneven ring of radio emission at the centre of the distantgalaxy,M87,hasexcitedastronomers,physicists,andthe general public, as the first view of a black hole. Everything about the project, known as the EHT – Event Horizon Telescope – is extreme. The observation combines signals from radio telescopes distributed over an entire hemisphere, operating at millimetre wavelengths on high mountains and at the Earth’s poles. These telescopes are synchronised by the best atomic clocks, and massive amounts of data recording and number crunching were needed. To interpret the results, elaborate models of the energy source, based on Einstein’s general theory of relativity (GTR) were constructed. The team had over three hundred scientists from more than a hundred institutions, some of whom worked for nearly a decadetowardsthisgoal.
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