Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy

Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by exhilaration on Thursday May 12, 2022 @10:20AM (#31354633)

I also want to point out that the mass around Sagittarius A* is rapidly shifting which makes getting a sharp image still harder. From the NYT:

Sagittarius A*, the black hole in the Milky Way galaxy, is a harder target. It is less than one-thousandth the mass and size of the M87 hole and, therefore, evolves a thousand times faster. The M87 black hole barely budges during a weeklong observing run, but Sagittarius A* changes its appearance as often as every five minutes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/science/black-hole-photo....

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by bjelkeman-again on Thursday May 12, 2022 @10:34AM (#31354816)

M87, according to the original link is 1000x the mass of Sag A, which has a diameter 17x that of our sun. It is mind (and space) bending.

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by brandmeyer on Thursday May 12, 2022 @10:38AM (#31354863)

> all while compiling an unprecedented library of simulated black holes to compare with the observations

It also sounds like this is the combination of an image-generating model hypothesis as well as the raw data itself. Ie, this is the image that the model produces which best-fits the sparse interferometry data.

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by JohnBooty on Thursday May 12, 2022 @10:25AM (#31354697)

Wow, that's incredible. Is that because of all the material the black hole is "devouring?"

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