First ever image of a black hole!

Minusorange · 10 Apr 2019 at 22:03

Problem is looking at it 2d in photo, is it a sphere of nothingness that sucks everything into or a disc or is it a 4 dimensional object ?

Nasher · 10 Apr 2019 at 22:05

Everything at once.

Teknobry · 10 Apr 2019 at 22:22

ksangur said:
pah, black holes are passe,

the real mind bogglers are neutron stars, they are so dense that a normal-sized matchbox
containing neutron-star material would have a weight of approximately 3 billion metric tons.

But a black hole's density is even higher...hence why light cannot escape it's gravitation pull.

HoneyBadger · 10 Apr 2019 at 22:22

Amazing.

Colonel_Klinck · 10 Apr 2019 at 22:38

Scott Manley has a done a good video on it.

Sankari · 10 Apr 2019 at 22:51

To be honest, it's more orange than I expected.

eola · 10 Apr 2019 at 22:52

Absolutly amazing, it's mind blowing when billions and millions of units are used to describe the universe.Hats off to these guys who work the mathmatics out, it is truly remarkable.
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/how-far-is-a-light-year

Cooler running · 10 Apr 2019 at 23:07

Tis quite a thing, but also a bit er, blurey. Hopefully at some point we can put space telescopes at different points around the solar system and get a higher res image.

robfosters · 10 Apr 2019 at 23:24

Hades said:
I think this is incredible. I always remember talking to my science teacher in the 1970's about black holes and he kept remi ding me that they were just a theory and we didn't know if they actually existed. Now we have detected them everywhere, have evidence of one at the heart of our (and all) galaxies and have a picture of one. We have come such a long way so quickly.

I bet he feels like a right doughnut today

Tombstone · 10 Apr 2019 at 23:50

My god, its full of stars.

Freakbro · 11 Apr 2019 at 00:10

Minusorange said:
Problem is looking at it 2d in photo, is it a sphere of nothingness that sucks everything into or a disc or is it a 4 dimensional object ?

It's basically spherical yes rather than a disc and with the gravitational waves we recently detected we now believe there are no more 'spatial' dimensions, it's just the 3 we've got.

Narj · 11 Apr 2019 at 00:10

It's allegedly destructive and is black. I demand public outrage over this unnecessary stereotyping!

Also was this picture taken somewhere around Parliament as there seems to be a black hole in the vicinity of accountability and democracy these days.

Akagi · 11 Apr 2019 at 00:51

That is a very big donut.

It's quite easy to forget things like the fact that until now we haven't had so much as a picture of a black hole, what with the thousands of sci-fi movies books and TV Series!

Brizzles · 11 Apr 2019 at 00:56

Pictures blurred, did Raymond take it ?

CREATIVE!11 · 11 Apr 2019 at 00:56

THIS THREAD IS RACIST.

LOCK IT.

Edit: I don't like space.... thinking about the sheer size of it, how meaningless I am/everything is makes me feel weird....

easyrider · 11 Apr 2019 at 01:21

CREATIVE!11 said:
Edit: I don't like space.... thinking about the sheer size of it, how meaningless I am/everything is makes me feel weird....

xxalxx · 11 Apr 2019 at 01:23

Conscript said:
Insert "your mum" joke here.
Vertiasium did a great video the other day, this is worth a watch as it explains why black holes appear as they do.

Was an excellent video, does really well on describing why we can see the back and sides of the black hole in a way that we can actually understand!

easyrider · 11 Apr 2019 at 01:40

Really helped me that video

robj20 · 11 Apr 2019 at 02:02

It's not technically a photo of a black hole though is it. It's a photo of what's around a black hole.

easyrider · 11 Apr 2019 at 02:14

robj20 said:
It's not technically a photo of a black hole though is it. It's a photo of what's around a black hole.

Your point?