Event Horizon Telescopes Test Results in Wild, Beautiful Supermassive Black Hole Images
When you close your eyes and picture a black hole, you might imagine a giant pitch black center with light bending as it moves over the event horizon. In reality we haven't really gotten a good look at one, but that might change soon.
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00:00When you close your eyes and picture a black hole, you might imagine something like this,
00:08a giant pitch black center with light bending as it moves over the event horizon.
00:12In actuality these are the photos we have gotten of black holes so far, however things
00:16might change soon.
00:18Experts are about to use an array of event horizon telescopes that includes observational
00:22points all over the globe.
00:24They say it will provide the highest resolution photos of black holes we've seen so far,
00:28ones that could be 50% higher resolution than current ones.
00:31So what will those look like?
00:33Well they have now released some test images after pointing the incomplete array towards
00:37a couple of the closest black holes we know of.
00:39This is what they were able to produce when they directed the array at the M87 supermassive
00:44black hole that resides just 55 million light years away.
00:47And this is what they were able to simulate after pointing it at Sagittarius A, the supermassive
00:52black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
00:55Both images were completed using simulated results, but they are a taste of what we can
00:59expect when the array is finished.
01:01Experts liken the jump in technology as the difference between black and white in color
01:05photography, saying the data that will be collected by the event horizon telescopes
01:09could let us finally better understand these cosmic mysteries.