Coming soon: First pictures of a black hole.

This I cant wait for, pictures of a blackhole, omg..
New Scientist

These observations will also be the sternest test yet of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which predicts the existence of black holes. If relativity breaks down, Doeleman and his team might not see a black hole at all, but something even stranger.

What we do know for sure is that something big lurks at the centre of our galaxy - because its powerful gravity affects the motion of nearby stars and gas. That something is about 4.5 million times the mass of the sun and crammed into an area the size of the inner solar system. There are few obvious ways to pack stuff in so tightly. Four million suns would be a dead giveaway, for instance. A swarm of neutron stars or small black holes would be highly unstable. So our best bet is one massive black hole.

'' All that could change in the next few months. Astronomers are working to tie together a network of microwave telescopes across the planet to make a single instrument with the most acute vision yet. They will turn this giant eye towards what they believe is a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, code name Sagittarius A* ''


This is a long article and well worth reading if you wonder about 'what's ou there.

'' You can't see a black hole directly, but you can see its shadow – and now vast telescopes are ready to get their first glimpse of the cosmic monster at the heart of our galaxy.''



You can read more about Sagittarius A* (Sgr a) here at Wiki. Wiki Link

It seems Massive Black Holes are in the center of every galaxy.. I get the feeling they really don't understand "why" that is though.. It's almost like they power the galaxy around it..since they always seem to be in the center.

That is really great. The scientists are now are on the verge of seeing a thing, which was considered invisible. Awesome. Flag for bringing in info.

reply to post by Molan27


Doubt the power the galaxies, since there are many galaxies that don't have them at the center, the familiar disc shape we have of our galaxy is due to it rotating around the SMBH at the center.

Yes they don't power galaxies but they do periodic gamma ray bursts/eruption that can trigger creation of stars and planets. Steady stream of matter falling to a SMBH can create jets of relativistic particles that can also trigger creation of stars and planets in another galaxy receiving the jet particles.

*To the astronomers, pls don't look straight into the galactic eye, it may get angry and bite back!

[edit on 1-6-2009 by ahnggk]

I find black holes fascinating! Would love to see one through a high powered telescope. Then I could name the stars after me if I saw any

flagging this one. I'm interested in seeing how this ends up. Personally, I don't believe in black holes (or dark matter/energy, big bang, singularities.....) but who knows

ummm, ok so im going to ask a stupid question

when will the image release?

i'll be looking forward to that and other things they might find with this.
are black holes found in any other parts of the galaxies or in dead space?
i can see why they would form in the center of a galaxy but not sure how they could reach the density required anywhere else.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Sometime in the near future.

Im starting to think theres a stress point on the fabric of the expanding invisible waves and matter that make up the void of space, and with the areas of denser spin random eddies like in rivers erode this invisible fabric tearing a whole, which has its own vaccum, and perhaps is the bigger creature were a part of? A dimension/space/time rotational toroidal shaped infinitely expanding bubble in the water of nothing we can see from here i guess.

thats how i have extrapolated what ive read from different books and studies. im probably wrong somewhere.

Of course some mathematical physicists have placed doubts on the existence of black holes.

www.wired.com...

Having been trained in the sciences, in my latter years I have become very skeptical of most of their models, especially considering the way they safeguard real challenges to the status quo. It's like any other religion or priestcraft.

reply to post by SevenThunders


Don't forget it's mathematicians who invented black holes "the way we know them" in the first place.