The reason Sagittarius A* wasn't the first Black Hole imaged

Sometimes I really do think the Universe is sentient , just as we were gearing up for the first image of Sagittarius A* the Universe lights up a neutron star right in front of it making SagA* indistinguishable from itself , the Magnetar has since dimmed down so the future for the project looks bright ... but hopefully not that bright.

Then, on April 24 of 2013, a cascade of surprising data started coming in from their telescopes. The first telescope to notice the sudden change was Swift, an orbital NASA telescope.

"We were watching the supermassive black hole, trying to pick up a little bit of a signature in the X-ray wavelengths from this interaction, and then BANG, the magnetar went off," she told Live Science, clapping her hands together for emphasis.

There was a bright flash of X-ray light. At first, astronomers thought they were seeing some new and unprecedented behavior from the black hole, possibly a massive flare, Haggard said. Most X-ray observatories don't have the resolution to distinguish between two objects, especially with the magnetar flaring that brightly.
www.livescience.com...

So that's the reason the first image of a Black Hole wasn't our own Sagittarius A* but Messier 87 instead , the Universe decided it didn't want to share that information just yet.
***shakes fist at Universe***

a reply to: gortex
The black hole image was in radio frequency, so that might still allow us to image Sag A*. The team are working on it.

originally posted by: gortex
***shakes fist at Universe***

seat belt on in case universe shakes back.

nice thread

f.

Don't blame the whole universe. It didn't do anything wrong. Magnetar is at fault. It even sounds evil.

#BlameMagnetar

a reply to: gortex

Out of all the billions of years, it just so happens when we decide to take a glance.
That’s amazing

a reply to: gortex

I was wondering why they didn't pick our own first, that is pretty crazy just as we are at a stage of progress to look then the universe shines a maglite into our eyes, well a magnetar
Thanks for posting
*opens search engine to read more

originally posted by: Ohanka
Don't blame the whole universe. It didn't do anything wrong. Magnetar is at fault. It even sounds evil.

#BlameMagnetar

#MagnetarLivesMatter!

a reply to: gortex

Your title should have been, ”Sgr A* photobombed by Magnetar”!!

Every “body” wants to be a “star”!!

Black hole blocked by an a-hole!!

The Hole is not greater than its parts!



I was wondering why they didn’t even show us why. Maybe the can Photochop the magnetar out. They are thinking about adding more radio telescopes to the VLI array for next time.

The future will be cool because we know that it can be done!