They get a picture of a black hole for the first time – 04/10/2019

The European European Observatory (ESO) and the synchronized system equipment of Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) They showed an image of the supermbadive black hole Mesier 87 (M87), which is a real revolution in astrophysics. This is the first known image of a black hole.

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The novelty was announced Wednesday at simultaneous press conferences held in Washington, Brussels, Santiago de Chile, Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo and Madrid.

Clarin received the news in Córdoba, where the GRAV19, an international congress of cosmology bringing together experts in gravitation, takes place. Oscar Reula, professor at the Faculty of Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics and Computer Science (Famaf) of the National University of Córdoba (UNC) and principal investigator of Conicet, said that the picture "will corroborate or reject the theory of Einstein, badyze the accretion discs, composed of gas and dust, which rotate at a very high speed around the black hole, producing a radiation revealing its position ".

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"In addition," added Reula, "thanks to these images you can understand how the magnetism of black holes works, deepening our knowledge on the formation of the jets, the jets of particles expelled from the poles of the black holes. It is about the emission of enormous quantities of energy, whose only explanation for the moment is that they come from the rotation energy of the black holes. "

One of the causes of the origin of black holes results from the collapse of a star. The rest of the matter of a star is limited to a small area that then gives way to a large gravitational field. The force of gravity of a body depends on its mbad and if it is very large, the gravity will be so high that the body will begin to draw all around him even the light. This implies that his mbad and gravity will increase as he "eats" new stars, explained Reula.

The EHT's global network of telescopes connects multiple radio antennas all over the planet, creating a large virtual lens the size of the Earth, about 10,000 kilometers in diameter, with sufficient magnifying power to penetrate the fleeing region that surrounds it. of a black hole, including what is called his event horizon, equivalent to the point of no return where the stars, the planets, the gases, the electromagnetic radiations, including the light, are absorbed.

In April 2017, eight telescopes in different parts of the world pointed their "eyes" simultaneously to two black holes: Sagittarius A *, in the center of the Milky Way, and M87, located in the constellation of the Virgin, at 50 million light-years. The intention was to obtain a "portrait" of the surrounding areas. The image presented Wednesday corresponds to the M87.

The new images will make possible test the theory of general relativity of Einstein, which predicts the existence of a circular "shadow" around black holes.

In physics, Einstein's field equations are the basis of the predictive apparatus of general relativity. It is a set of ten equations describing the fundamental interaction of gravitation resulting from the fact that space-time is curved by matter and energy.

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"The black holes represent the solutions of the Einstein equations where the effect of geometry is preponderant on matter, that is, it is a finite region of space inside which there is a concentration of curvature, which acts as if there is a lot of matter, enough to generate a gravitational field of such a magnitude that even the light can not escape from its interior, "says Reula.

Although the theory of general relativity has predicted the existence of event horizons around black holes, Until now, telescopes did not have sufficient resolution capacity to "see" a black hole. And although the horizons of events can reach several million kilometers in diameter, black holes are elusive. They are far and often hidden behind large amounts of gas and interstellar dust.

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The data recorded at all sites were returned to two central processing facilities at MIT and the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, where the signals from all participating telescopes have been combining for years.

Córdoba Special Envoy.

LGP