First Look at a Black Hole by Danielle Smith-Llera

Author:Danielle Smith-Llera [Smith-Llera, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history; photos; photograph; photographer; black hole; telescope; Shep Doeleman; astronomy; astrophysics; observatory; Antarctica; middle school; grades 4-8
Publisher: Capstone
Published: 2020-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

How big is a black hole? Our sun—shown here—is equal to the mass of 332,946 Earths. The mass of the black hole Doeleman’s team imaged is 6.5 billion times that of the sun!

The four images produced from EHT data and algorithms were combined into a single image. This is the image the world would see a year later. Why didn’t Doeleman and his team rush to share at least a hint of this exciting news? Because scientists test everything for accuracy before publishing their findings.

Team members ran thousands of simulations of how M87* might look with small changes. For example, what if the accretion disk were a different temperature? What if it spun differently? The simulations brought good news. It turns out that the photograph is difficult to tell apart from the simulations. The photograph had passed the test. It was a reasonable image of a black hole based on the EHT data.

For EHT scientists, the final photograph was captivating. Looking at the photograph “was surprisingly emotional … we’ve been looking at pictures quite similar to that from our own models,” remembered Markoff. “But when you look at it and you have to tell yourself that it’s actually data, that you’re not seeing a simulation but you’re really looking at a black hole, I found myself just with my cell phone staring at it for hours.”31

It’s likely that most of the 350 people from 20 countries who worked on the EHT project felt the same way. For Doeleman, the photograph is about “the human story of colleagues working together, across borders, to turn our planet into an immense lens. It makes you feel that nothing is impossible.”32

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