![]() ![]() For example, Holz said, many revolve around the stuff that falls into black holes. Still, there’s a lot more left to discover. In the last decade or two, we’ve learned a lot more about black holes: Scientists such as Nobel laureate Andrea Ghez helped prove the very existence of Sagittarius A*, and the LIGO detectors picked up the ripples from two black holes colliding in a faraway galaxy. And as such, they offer a unique opportunity to understand the laws of the universe. I mean, they're made out of space and time!” said UChicago Prof. “They're these incredibly radical objects. What could Sagittarius A* tell us?īlack holes have always fascinated scientists. “The South Pole Telescope is sitting there at the bottom of the Earth, and that means we can look at the center of our galaxy all the time, 24 hours a day,” said Carlstrom. The South Pole Telescope already served as an important linchpin for taking the first image of a black hole, but its geographic position makes it even more crucial for observing Sagittarius A*. But its remote location, chosen because of the extraordinarily clear skies and low humidity, also makes it perfect to moonlight as part of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration. It was built to survey the sky for remnants of the light left over from the Big Bang. This is what the “Event Horizon Telescope” really is-a collection of telescopes around the world that are normally used for other purposes.Ĭarlstrom is the director of one such facility, the South Pole Telescope, which sits in Antarctica. Scientists figured out that if they pointed telescopes all around the Earth at the same spot at the same time, and cross-referenced the data, it could act as though it was one big telescope covering the size of the Earth. The bright “donuts” of light in the famous images are actually light and matter being ripped apart and chewed up by the black holes.īut these black holes are so far away that even such hazy images marked an incredible feat of science, engineering and global collaboration. ![]() We'd really like to know and understand what's going on there, and to be able to tie it to the dynamics of our galaxy as a whole.”īlack holes are so named because they themselves cannot be seen-they are regions of space where gravity is so powerful that not even light can escape. “The galactic center black hole is special for us,” said John Carlstrom, the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Physics at the University of Chicago. But it could help us understand how the Milky Way formed, as well as the strange physics that happen in and near black holes. Named Sagittarius A*, this black hole is no threat to us Earthlings. The 2019 picture captured a black hole in a galaxy millions of light-years away from us but in 2022, they have announced the first image of the supermassive black hole that squats at the center of our own galaxy. ![]() Taken by astronomers with the Event Horizon Telescope, the image splashed across the front pages of newspapers around the world. One of the bright spots in the dark years of the 2020s was, paradoxically, the pictures of black holes-the first direct visual evidence for the astronomical phenomenon. ![]()
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