Event Horizon Telescope to Unveil Big Black Hole News Today! Watch Live

[Kharadin]

Hey look, Einstein's still right. Colour me surprised.

[Chonar]

The only thing more dense than this black hole is some of the peanut gallery that frequents this forum.

[AeneasBK]

This is really impressive.

Can someone explain why it's so significant though? Apart from that it was very difficult to do, or that someone came up with an inventive method for doing it that previously was thought impossible.

[EnclosedOne]

This is really impressive.

Can someone explain why it's so significant though? Apart from that it was very difficult to do, or that someone came up with an inventive method for doing it that previously was thought impossible.

its significant because its hard proof that black holes actually do, in fact, exist

[kail]

A good ELI5 on this image

This YT channel never ceases to amaze me. Dereck Muller does a phenomenal job in taking such a complex subject and explain the basics to a (mostly) understandable video. It highlights how groundbreaking it is that we can capture an image of M87's black hole.

[Pillerina]

Yeah, that's what's giving it the name. It's a dense object with gravity that light can't escape and thus it will be perceived as a hole. The object itself is whatever matter comes close enough to be dragged in. Most likely plenty of fusion going on in there too.

Actually at that density even the most fundamental particles collapse, and as such fusion as we know it is impossible since there are no atoms to fuse. The density is larger than even electron degeneracy pressure, and we know of no other force that would stop the collapse, meaning that, according to our models all the matter would collapse into an infinitely dense point.
What we see is the shadow of the event horizon, the region of space where gravity becomes so strong light gets redshifted into oblivion, not the actual object that causes the black hole.

[Mendzia]

So much hype this past week about this 'reveal' and tomorrow nobody will remember..

My guess is that you have heard about it just watching some mainstream media yesterday... right?
Of course you will not remember because you just simply do not care.
Personally i was following the whole EHT news since it was introduced and yesterdays press conference was really, really exciting for me and many other astronomy fans. And yes - i will remember this day untill my end probably.

seems like desperate attempt of space industry trying to say they are still around..

Do you even know the difference about 'space industry' and astronomers?

It's just a picture of negative space for the vortex..

???????

How can we verify this is a real picture of a "Black Hole" and not just something created on a computer?

There were several independent teams having the same ending results.

Feels like another hoax, just like the "Moon landing" back in the 60s.

Oh... that explains previous question.

Seems like no one actually cares about this thankfully, but what actual, tangible proof is there that it even is what they say it is? Some BS equations or something?

They will release collected data and papers really soon so it can be checked.

OT: pretty cool. Now we just need to develop an actual camera that takes a visible light photo instead of sensors picking up various infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths to generate an image.

Sadly it is probably not going to happen due extinction.

[dubious_doomhammer]

being a rat is one of the lowest things a person can be.

anyway, it's pretty cool looking. but you know, it's probably just a super tiny little hard rock that weighs a shit ton, right? it's a shame, but i doubt it's a "hole" in space.

if they are a hole, that's got some interesting implications.

Make sure not to call the police if you get robbed or carjacked or something, cause you know ... ratting the robber out would make you worse than them .. oi

Anyways, objects with mass curve spacetime. Black holes are so massive that they curve spacetime to the point physics cannot explain them. The term "black hole" is just something they call it ... like dark energy, or dark matter .. it does nothing to accurately describe what they actually are.

rats and traitors, the only thing lower is certain criminal behaviors. i'll never be a rat.

and yes, it is momentous to finally have visible proof of it. i just wish we could actually do something about it, go to it and come back. touch it. it's probably a substance we don't know anything about, harder than any other know substance. i'd bet there's nothing in the universe that could break it.

I doubt there will ever be a time where anyone, or anything could interact with a black hole. Whether you're pulled apart from gravity, or incinerated by the accretion disk that's a million+ degrees rotating at millions of miles an hour, or have your dna shredded by gamma rays ... the outcome looks grim for studying black holes up close.

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Not impressed. It is big fricken black hole. So what? What I am impressed with however is photos which show multiple galaxies in the same view. Such an abundance of stars to the point it is mind boggling. To Imagine this is all from a accident reinforces to myself the insanity of such a concept.

Black holes have not been directly observed. Being directly observed means that theories that predicted them were correct. Not everything has to be visually stimulating to be important.

[Teaon]

now time to find the white holes !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hole

[P for Pancetta]

Not impressed. It is big fricken black hole. So what? What I am impressed with however is photos which show multiple galaxies in the same view. Such an abundance of stars to the point it is mind boggling. To Imagine this is all from a accident reinforces to myself the insanity of such a concept.

It's an ugly photo but the quality of the photo is not what impresses scientists. Before the photo was taken it was already speculated to look exactly like this, and the fact that it does in a way proves that black holes actually exist, which might sound stupid but until now we didn't have a proof as strong as this one.

You can't say the big bang was an accident either, we don't know enough about it. For all we know a million big bangs happen every second.

[Toccs]

Surely an object of that size and density must be effecting our solo system... nay our galaxy's orbit around the universe?

Amazing news though.

[Moe Szyslak]

now time to find the white holes !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hole

Afaik these are purely theoretical and wood severaly fuck us over.

Surely an object of that size and density must be effecting our solo system... nay our galaxy's orbit around the universe?

Amazing news though.

This thing is so far away we are there are literally bigger fish to fry.


Still a great job!

[Ihavewaffles]

Personally i was following the whole EHT news since it was introduced and yesterdays press conference was really, really exciting for me and many other astronomy fans. And yes - i will remember this day untill my end probably.

???????

Ok, i'll explain, negative space refers to all space around an object. If lets say you have a chair, you could instead of drawing the chair instead draw everything else, you can see where the chair is supposed to be, but you don't know if it's made of plastic, wood, metal, if its red, green, if its made up of gummi bears..



The picture of the "black hole" is not a real picture, also it only shows the negative space outside the object, the event horizon. The only interesting thing for black holes is data (confirming theories about black hole), not the image since there's no light it cannot be seen. This is not how we got proof of a black hole, that was confirmed by its effect on its surrounding space years ago..

It's like with planets in other solar systems, we can't see them, but we have proof because of when they pass in front of their star, how they effect each other etc.
Now, if we have for 3 whole days media hyping up a big "reveal" n then space nerds reveal "photo of a planet from a different solar system" buuuut...they only show negative space, not the planet itself, I would be very veryyy underwhelmed n I'm sure nerds will say "we just don't get the importance" but to me the data is important, whether its a gas or rock planet, an image is pointless if it doesn't depict a single thing of said object.

Wow, cool planet!!!!!!11111oneone...


So...for the donut around the event horizon, it's the suck zone n looks like a vortex, wow who would have thought!! It's not like anybody thought it would look like something else!... This is as interesting as when scientists said, "we now have proof that tobacco is harmful" a few years ago and everyone else went "no shit, sherlock!"

[grexly75]

being a rat is one of the lowest things a person can be.

anyway, it's pretty cool looking. but you know, it's probably just a super tiny little hard rock that weighs a shit ton, right? it's a shame, but i doubt it's a "hole" in space.

if they are a hole, that's got some interesting implications.

No they are not an actual hole in space as such, they are what is left after a large star collapses in on itself.. The image they showed was from the centre of the M87 galaxy.. They are also trying to get an image of the Sagittarius A black hole at the centre of our galaxy..

A bit of info on what they are..

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstu...k-hole-k4.html

[Unholyground]

Pretty amazing that they finally have decent pictures of the gravitational lensing, not even light is safe from the black hole!

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Ok, i'll explain, negative space refers to all space around an object.

The simplest way I have seen it explained is take a comb and brush your hair next to your sink, then turn your tap on so it is a small trickle then place the comb close to the stream and the watch the water bend towards the comb and that is essentially what is happening with the photons. While it is not indicative of how it actually works it is a great visual explanation of what is happening.

[grexly75]

Surely an object of that size and density must be effecting our solo system... nay our galaxy's orbit around the universe?

Amazing news though.

We are about 26000 to 35000 light years from galactic center.. And our solar system takes about 250 million years to do one galactic orbit..

[Mendzia]

SNIP

'Negative space'

[Ihavewaffles]

'Negative space'

That is an actual term, sorry your precious photo is not interesting to be called anything else

Let us know when you can show the event horizon, until then ./yawn

[Soeroah]

I'm rather impressed how detailed it is. I was expecting a fuzzy black and white image you might need to squint at to see a hole.

[Mendzia]

That is an actual term

Do you mean this?
Yeah... No.