WOW Pikes, that is truly amazing !! 

 

WOW.  That's absolutely horrible.  I didn't know about any of this until reading your post on the original board. 

 

quantafyre wrote:

That is an incredible shot Pikes.  The accretion disk (the orange ring around the hole), made of gas and dust turned to plasma, is incredibly huge.  No wonder it outshines all of the other stars in that galaxy.

Black hole is larger than our solar system. 

Siagiah wrote:

Pikes Peak 14115 wrote:

quantafyre wrote:

That is an incredible shot Pikes.  The accretion disk (the orange ring around the hole), made of gas and dust turned to plasma, is incredibly huge.  No wonder it outshines all of the other stars in that galaxy.

Black hole is larger than our solar system. 

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Really ??  Yikes !!  It's incomprehensible just how enormous the universe actually is.
 

What is incomprehensible to me is the mathematics and physics within the event horizon and the point of infinite density inside this thing. 

Merlin wrote:

How do they know that is what a Black Hole looks like?

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Ya got me.  I'm just assuming that the scientists know what they are looking at. 

Pikes Peak 14115 wrote:

Merlin wrote:

How do they know that is what a Black Hole looks like?

Mathematics provides an accurate description. Models were built based on that. This image is very much like the models, but is the real McCoy. Its parts are clear and well defined. 
 

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So, the photo taken matches the models and that's how they know it's the real deal ?
 

Here are two essays on this discovery.

What is the first picture of a black hole? 

What is the first picture of a black hole?

Viktor T. Toth, IT pro, part-time physicist

You have seen the picture from the Event Horizon Telescope project. Let me tell you how it was produced and what it represents.

First, it is a synthesized picture, not a photograph. That does not take anything away from its scientific significance, but it is important not to misunderstand what it represents.It is an image based on data obtained at radio frequencies, not visible light.

tNo single radio telescope has the resolution to see the shadow of M87*. For this reason, radio telescopes around the world are synchronized, using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). Essentially they become a single instrument, like a gigantic telescope with an aperture as big as the whole Earth.

However, this “virtual” telescope produces very scarce data, since obviously, the whole Earth is not covered by radio dishes. And the telescope's resolution is much better along a baseline (the line connecting two actual radio telescopes) than in directions perpendicular to it.

So the next step is computational: Within reasonable constraints, and after reasonable filtering, attempt to reconstruct the image that offers the best agreement with the data that was collected.The "photograph" of M87* is a result of this process.

It is an incredible achievement. And the size of the central "hole", corresponding to the shadow of the black hole's so-called photon sphere, is pretty much what has been predicted using Einstein's theory.  

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How does the first photo of a black hole confirm Einstein's theory of relativity? 

Gali Weinstein, PhD.

History of relativity. Foundations of Einstein's theory

We see an asymmetric bright ring surrounding a central dark disk.The dark shadow represents the black hole, which appears as a central round region formed by darkness. The shadow is explained as a black hole absorbing all the photons that enter its event horizon.

Why is there an asymmetric bright ring pointing towards the lower region of the image? Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity answer this question:

First, the asymmetry in the ring is produced by Doppler beaming, which is a special relativistic effect.

Second, of course, the reason for this asymmetry is also due to general relativistic effects, namely the sense of the black hole rotation.

The black hole is rotating because unlike a Schwartschild non-rotating black hole, a Kerr-rotating black hole produces jets. Indeed, the asymmetry of the ring is produced by Doppler beaming: The difference in brightness between the two jets of plasma which are spewed at nearly light-speed from the black hole is explained by Doppler beaming.

Consider a black hole that rotates with speed close to the speed of light, and this black hole has an accretion disk of plasma that rotates around it at relativistic speeds. The black hole ejects jets on both sides, the approaching jet and the counter-jet. The approaching jet is Doppler boosted due to its motion towards Earth and the brightness is increased and the counter-jet is Doppler boosted away from us and its brightness is decreased due to its motion away from Earth. The plasma of the approaching-jet is moving towards Earth and the plasma of the counter-jet is in motion away from Earth. The approaching jet is pointing towards Earth. The rotation of the black hole is aligned with the counter-jet. This implies a clockwise rotation of the black hole as viewed from Earth for an observer looking toward the supermassive Kerr-rotating black hole M87 along the approaching jet axis. This interpretation (presented here in simple terms) agrees with Einstein’s theory of relativity.    

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Last edited by Siagiah (5/11/2019 5:30 pm)