[ad_1]
The breakthrough came with an announcement. Rumors have been running for weeks that researchers at the "Event Horizon Telescope" project have managed to create a revolutionary image of a black hole. On Wednesday, researchers presented this image at six simultaneous press conferences around the world. For example, in Brussels, where, according to European Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas, the chief scientist, Professor Heino Falcke, is a German radio-astronomer doing research at Radbout University in Nijmwegen.
Heino Falcke: "You've probably already seen a lot of pictures of black holes, but these were all computer simulations, this picture is real – and so so precious to us, and it looks like a ring of fire."
"This image is real, it looks like a ring of fire."
Scientific journalist Dirk Lorenzen, who attended the press conference in Brussels, explained the importance of this discovery in an interview with DLF presenter Ralf Krauter.
Dirk Lorenzen: "This is really the first time you make such a big hole, or you look at its environment, it's a big problem, but of course, it was also a lot of show for the very interesting science. "
Ralf Krauter: "Heino Falcke described the photo as a" circle of fire. Is this true from your point of view? "
Lorenzen: "In fact, it's surprisingly exactly what you expected: a dark black area surrounded by a ring, which reminds me of a ring so half full of diamonds, with yellow and red, looked with the radio waves, that is to say there was no color, then dyed, but: we actually see the immediate surroundings of the glowing black hole – the black hole There is no a lot of light in the environment, but there are many in the environment that shines, that is to say, the material that flows into the black hole is heated and illuminates, as we l & # 39; have seen here, and to some extent in the shadow, that black round drop – the black hole. "
Krauter: "Is this really a milestone for astronomy?"
Lorenzen: "Some say that astronomy is divided between the time before the presentation of this image and the time after, but I would say that you should keep the ball a little flatter, which is very interesting what you see there are fascinating objects and in this galaxy M87 is sitting this monster with more than six billion solar mbades, but if this is really important for science, it must be seen in the next few years, it is not over today's first ideas on what you can possibly do. "
Max Planck's Bonn researchers significantly involved
The first direct evidence of the existence of black holes has paved the way for the fusion of eight radio telescopes in the world. In simple terms, this creates a virtual giant telescope with an antenna diameter of 8,000 kilometers. Max Planck Director Michael Kramer plays an important role in the design and operation of this "Horizon Event Telescope". The author Dlf Reinhard Brüning visited him in Bonn and asked him what was going on in his head when he saw the first pictures.
Michael Kramer: "It was in a good mood, it's very – maybe it was impressive that it looks exactly what we were hoping for."
Michael Kramer from the Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy in Bonn describes the moment when he first saw the picture of a black hole. He fired himself, along with colleagues, in one of our neighboring galaxies: "Not with optical eyes, but with radio eyes."
The eyes of the radio are huge bowl-shaped antennas that capture radio waves from the depths of space. Thanks to an intelligent combination of several of these installations, the radio astronomers felt a layer of shallow and turbulent gas. It is located in the M87 galaxy, about 50 million light-years from Earth.
Dream long cherished
Michael Kramer: "This gas disc exists because there is a black hole in the center that swallows it slowly, and that this hot gas moving in a circular orbit around the black hole is now visible on a photo when you have enough at a high resolution. "
Already 100 years ago, astronomers discovered the effects of this gas disk in orbit in the center of M87: "a remarkable bundle of material in a straight line", perfectly perpendicular to it. Later, they realized that a black hole was to be the cause of this so-called jet.
To be able to observe this black hole directly, but remained a desired dream. In the early 2000s, Heino Falcke, a colleague of Michael Kramer, who was also doing research at the Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy in Bonn, suggested looking for the shadow of the black hole in the middle of the glowing disc gas.
"Then, when you determined the accuracy you need and what accuracy existed 20 years ago when he proposed the experiment, it was clear that not everything was yet technologically possible. "
Collective listening
But that has changed, as radio astronomers are now able to interconnect their large telescopes around the world to collectively listen in space – and with a much higher resolution than that a single antenna could provide. In 2017, they launched a concerted action campaign with the "Event Horizon Telescope" project, in which a radio telescope at the South Pole was badociated with the APEX and ALMA telescopes in Chile.
ALMA telescopic basins in the Atacama desert (ESO)
Michael Kramer: "We are at the limit of what is technically feasible: we have a plan of observation and all the telescopes of the world, a ballet so huge: those who participate in ballet always look at the same source at the same time , by changing the source And write their data on hard disk, these hard drives are then sent worldwide and are distributed in two centers: on the one hand in Haystack, in the United States, and on the other hand here in Bonn in our institute. "
Both groups get the same data, but they evaluate strictly separated from each other. Using different methods to avoid mistakes, Max Planck's director explains: "It was important that people do not simply copy what other teams do, we wanted totally independent evaluation methods."
Milestone of astronomy
The images, calculated by the two working groups at the end, are surprisingly similar. An error in the evaluation is therefore unlikely. For Michael Kramer, who has been instrumental in building the radio telescope network, images of the black hole in the M87 galaxy mark a milestone in astronomy. And a success to which many have contributed, he says.
"It's not just the telescopes we need for such an experience, we have to have people to do the observation, we need people to make the instruments, we need people to do theoretical work in parallel People who badyze the data We need people to compare the data with the corresponding models, we need people who then interpret the comparisons accordingly, which requires, so to speak, a whole army of experienced people and young people. "
The spectacular snapshots of gas-consuming black holes that have now been released come from the 2017 and 2018 measurement campaigns. However, measurements are continuing as researchers want to refine their images – and are already targeting other black holes.
Only the beginning of black hole exploration
Sagittarius A is one of those black holes. It is located in the center of the Milky Way, has a sun mbad of about 400 million times and is only 26 000 light-years from Earth. According to the scientific journalist Lorenzen, we can expect images of Sagittarius A until mid-summer.
The hypothesis of Einstein's theory of relativity confirms that the inclusion of the black hole in the M87 galaxy seems to have been imagined. Thus, the dilemma of modern physics remains: the theory for the very small, the quantum theory and the theory for the very large, the theory of relativity, do not fit together. In terms of black holes, they both have to work, says Lorenzen. Finding a solution to the dilemma is one of the reasons why black holes need to be monitored.
The researchers would now have a first shot of a black hole. "The real exploration of black holes and the deep penetration of the theory of relativity are just beginning," said Lorenzen.
Source link
