Event Horizon Telescope ready to image black hole

[Star One]

I am guessing this technique at this time is not sensitive enough to image smaller black holes.

Scientists believe they are on the verge of obtaining the first ever picture of a black hole.
They have built an Earth-sized "virtual telescope" by linking a large array of radio receivers - from the South Pole, to Hawaii, to the Americas and Europe.
There is optimism that observations to be conducted during 5-14 April could finally deliver the long-sought prize.
In the sights of the so-called "Event Horizon Telescope" will be the monster black hole at the centre of our galaxy.
Although never seen directly, this object, catalogued as Sagittarius A*, has been determined to exist from the way it influences the orbits of nearby stars.
These race around a point in space at many thousands of km per second, suggesting the hole likely has a mass of about four million times that of the Sun.
But as colossal as that sounds, the "edge" of the black hole - the horizon inside which an immense gravity field traps all light - may be no more than 20 million km or so across.
And at a distance of 26,000 light-years from Earth, this makes Sagittarius A* a tiny pinprick on the sky.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team is nonetheless bullish.
"There's great excitement," said project leader Sheperd Doeleman from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"We've been fashioning our virtual telescope for almost two decades now, and in April we're going to make the observations that we think have the first real chance of bringing a black hole's event horizon into focus," he told BBC News.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38937141

[Nomadd]

A little fast, somewhat questionable math gets Betelguese as being 4,000 times the apparent diameter of Sagitarius A. I thought Sagitarius A was more like 44 million km across, but that wouldn't make that much difference.

[Star One]

Are they planning to add more telescopes to the network does anyone know? What about adding Spektr-R, would this be possible?

[AegeanBlue]

I don't think Spekt-R aka RadioAstron is possible due to frequency used. I guess that they would want more telescopes, if they can navigated the diplomacy and other issues. I remember reading articles over the last few years on the trial runs of EHT and all the hurdles it was getting the Mexican telescope up and in the network.

[as58]

Spect-R works at much longer wavelengths. There are not that many observatories working at ~1 mm. Nobeyama is the only one that comes to mind immediately that is not (AFAIK) already/soon used in EHT.

There's also a new telescope being constructed on top of Greenland's ice sheet, which will be used for EHT.

[Star One]

Spect-R works at much longer wavelengths. There are not that many observatories working at ~1 mm. Nobeyama is the only one that comes to mind immediately that is not (AFAIK) already/soon used in EHT.

There's also a new telescope being constructed on top of Greenland's ice sheet, which will be used for EHT.

Are the wavelengths it operates in a result of it being an orbital rather than ground based observatory?

Good article on the history of observing Sagittarius A*.

http://www.airspacemag.com/space/12_fm2017-mysteries-of-sagittarius-a-180961673/

[as58]

Spect-R works at much longer wavelengths. There are not that many observatories working at ~1 mm. Nobeyama is the only one that comes to mind immediately that is not (AFAIK) already/soon used in EHT.

There's also a new telescope being constructed on top of Greenland's ice sheet, which will be used for EHT.

Are the wavelengths it operates in a result of it being an orbital rather than ground based observatory?

Sort of - interferometry gets harder at shorter wavelengths, and making a space-based (sub-)mm interferometer would be extremely difficult. It's already hard enough to make it work on the ground. Being in space would be a big advantage to sub-mm observations in general because atmosphere, in particular water vapour, absorbs quite strongly at these wavelengths. That's why the observatories are at high altitude in places with a dry atmosphere.

[Sesquipedalian]

Preliminary image of the black hole:

[meekGee]

Preliminary image of the black hole:

SMH..... 

[as58]

Preliminary image of the black hole:

They should zoom out a bit.

[AegeanBlue]

This is an interesting lecture explaining what they are trying to see:



The results from the 2017 campaign will be published in early 2019, including an image as reconstructed from the interferometry.

[Star One]

Media Advisory: Press Conference on First Result from the Event Horizon Telescope

The European Commission, European Research Council, and the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project will hold a press conference to present a groundbreaking result from the EHT.

When: On 10 April 2019 at 15:00 CEST
Where: The press conference will be held at the Berlaymont Building, Rue de la Loi (Wetstraat) 200, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium. The event will be introduced by European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, and will feature presentations by the researchers behind this result.
What: A press conference to present a groundbreaking result from the EHT.
RSVP: This invitation is addressed to media representatives. To participate in the conference, members of the media must register by completing an online form before April 7 23:59 CEST. Please indicate whether you wish to attend in person or if you will participate online only. On-site journalists will have a question-and-answer session with panellists during the conference. In-person individual interviews immediately after the conference will also be possible.
The conference will be streamed online on the ESO website, by the ERC, and on social media. We will take a few questions from social media using the hashtag #AskEHTeu.

An ESO press release will be publicly issued shortly after the start of the conference at 15:07 CEST. Translations of the press release will be available in multiple languages, along with extensive supporting audiovisual material.

A total of six major press conferences will be held simultaneously around the globe in Belgium (Brussels, English), Chile (Santiago, Spanish), Shanghai (Mandarin), Japan (Tokyo, Japanese), Taipei (Mandarin), and USA (Washington, D.C., English).

The European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas will speak in Brussels, the President of the Academia Sinica, James Liao, will speak in Taipei, the ALMA Director Sean Dougherty and the ESO Director General Xavier Barcons will speak in Santiago, and the NSF Director France A. Córdova will speak in Washington DC. 

Due to the importance of this result, we encourage satellite events in the different ESO Member States and beyond. If you wish to arrange a satellite event please contact Katharina Königstein ([email protected]) for details on the live feed. There are satellite-events currently planned in Madrid, Rome, Gothenburg, Nijmegen and Pretoria.

For any further information and updates, please also check the Event Horizon Telescope webpage at https://eventhorizontelescope.org.

[Star One]

Media Advisory 19-004
NSF press conference on first result from Event Horizon Telescope project

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will hold a press conference to announce a groundbreaking result.

What: Press conference on groundbreaking result from the Event Horizon Telescope.

Who: NSF Director France Córdova will deliver remarks. A panel of EHT researchers will also deliver remarks and answer questions:

Sheperd Doeleman, EHT Director, Harvard University Senior Research Fellow, Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian
Daniel Marrone, University of Arizona, Department of Astronomy, Steward Observatory
Avery Broderick, University of Waterloo, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Sera Markoff, University of Amsterdam, Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, Gravitation and AstroParticle Physics Amsterdam
When: Wednesday, April 10, 2019, 9 a.m. EDT

Where: The National Press Club, 529 14th St N.W., Washington, D.C., 20045. The event will also be streamed live online.

RSVP: Credentialed press can register to attend the event in person by contacting [email protected]. To attend, media must register by 6:00 p.m. EDT on Monday, April 8. Details about submitting questions or scheduling interviews will be sent to journalists following registration.

Immediately following the press conference, panelists and other experts from the EHT collaboration will be available for interviews.

NSF will issue a press release the morning of the press conference. Translations of the press release will be available in multiple languages, along with extensive supporting audiovisual material.

In addition to the press briefing in the U.S, press conferences will be held simultaneously in Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo. Speakers in some of the locations to include:

The European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, will speak in Brussels.
President of the Academia Sinica, James Liao, will speak in Taipei.
Director of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, Sean Dougherty, and European Southern Observatory Director General Xavier Barcons will speak in Santiago.
If you wish to embed the press conference in your online feed, you may do so from either the NSF Black Holes Special Report or the NSF direct livestream link. The NSF Special Report includes additional information about exploring and studying black holes.

For further information about EHT, please check the Event Horizon Telescope webpage.

[Star One]

With that massive press conference and with so many satellite conferences around the globe  I guess they did see something.

[ugordan]

I've been looking forward to this for some time now. I hope the results are worth this hype!

[Star One]

I've been looking forward to this for some time now. I hope the results are worth this hype!

Some online have complained that announcing this on April Fools day wasn’t a good idea, seemingly ignoring the fact that I don’t believe all countries have such a day.

[ugordan]

I've been looking forward to this for some time now. I hope the results are worth this hype!

Some online have complained that announcing this on April Fools day wasn’t a good idea, seemingly ignoring the fact that I don’t believe all countries have such a day.

Well, isn't that the primary function of the internet now anyway? People complaining and getting offended/triggered by stuff?

Who cares what those people think, I'm here for the science.

[jgoldader]

IIRC, they were looking first at Sgr A* in our own galactic center and the black hole in the nucleus of M87.  Wonder which one they finished with first?

[Star One]

IIRC, they were looking first at Sgr A* in our own galactic center and the black hole in the nucleus of M87.  Wonder which one they finished with first?

I thought they wouldn’t announce the results until they had done both?

[ugordan]

I'm thinking Sgr A*, just because it's a bigger impact as it's in our backyard and not some "random" galaxy out there.