The press conference is live (on YouTube) from the National Science Foundation. Starts around 9am.
April 10, 2019
At 9 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, a group of astronomers who run a globe-girdling network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope are expected to unveil the first-ever images of a black hole.For some years now, scientific literature, news media and films have featured remarkably sophisticated and academic computer simulations of black holes. If all has gone well, the images today will reveal the real thing, and scientists at last will catch a glimpse of what had seemed unseeable.
Here is the live Youtube feed:
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Comments
So Interstellar got it right?
Interstellar got a lot right.
Christopher Nolan worked with a bunch of astrophysicists to make sure it would be as accurate as possible. A lot of time and research by scientists went into getting the look of the worm hole and black hole to be as close to accurate as they could manage for what they actually knew at the time. If anything, this shows how accurately those scientists were able to get it right.
Yes but putting a black hole of ANY size right in our solar system would have had a lot of ramifications. The orbit of the planets in our solar system would've been completely disrupted. You don't just put a black hole in our solar system and expect it to simply be a portal and not impact anything else.
That was a worm hole, not a black hole. The worm hole shot them to another region of space near a the black hole you are thinking of
worm hole:
black hole:
Now, I don't know enough about the physics of a worm hole to know how it would theoretically screw with the surrounding space, especially if it was located within our solar system. You could be right, I really don't know.
Fair point - I guess I assumed the worm-hole was a mini-blackhole (mini in size comparison), since the theory is that blackholes are wormholes themselves. I could've sworn they said it was a blackhole at some point in the movie too, but I am probably misremembering.
Absolutely not...its good to think about worm holes...i remember one of my professors at radford said that we would not be able to travel back in time due to the grandfather paradox, but it would be a lot easier to travel into the future...
I believe Hawking said the same thing about traveling back in time...but I do disagree with him about there being a multiverse...no scientific facts or anything, just a feeling for me..
At least "traveling into the future" can be done with just relativity. Slow yourself down relative to the place where you want to go into the future of.
If anyone wants a good novel that deals with this as a core plot device, Speaker for the Dead (a sequel to Ender's Game) is my recommendation.
Deja Vu is a good movie as well and was kind of underrated IMO
This is the part that always gets me about Star Trek and Star Wars. (I know, I know, but at least Star Trek tries to play it off like it is grounded in physics)
The second you break the speed of light, time slows down for you as it speeds up for everyone else. Theoretically, all those jumps to warp/lightspeed should effectively take those people out of the current timeline.
Unless you're theoretically saying their travelling is bending space to create the 'worm hole'.
I'm pretty sure hyperspace / warp speed were intended to be wormhole-like technologies or at least ones where the vessel travels in a parallel dimension (at non-relativistic speeds) between 2 points in our normal universe. But it's worth noting, Relativity theory posits that as you approach of the speed of light, time passes more slowly for you, not that it passes more slowly once you reach the speed of light. According to Relativity you can never actually attain the speed of light, either. So somehow going faster than light may have an entirely different set of physics / time 'rules' that apply.
the Warhammer 40k series of games/books ups the ante on that alternate travel dimension, making it full of evil, insane, demonic forces that try and murder / destroy travelers and ships while in 'warp space'. Even better, warp drives basically only toggled the ship between dimensions, which meant the drive could break and trap a ship in the warp dimension.
This shit right here is why I love this website. come here for the sprots talk, get your learn on with some damn science.
Big Bang Theory would think a plotline like this was too far fetched
Two words:
Event Horizon
My favorite horror/thriller movie.
I was too young when I watched that movie. Still scares me.
I feel like they could make that movie today and do it so much better. Some of the effects used then were really, really cheesy looking back.
Then again, you could just play the original Dead Space game (or the second) and get a similar feel for creepy ass ship that is actively trying to kill you.
Watched that movie at 13 when my parents were out. Thunderstorm going on outside. Still stands as one of, if not the, scariest movie I've ever seen
Check out Forever War too. Another really good novel that uses relativistic time travel as a plot device.
I read the Forever War series. Very good if you are a sci-fi junkie like me.
Heck, I've been traveling into the future my whole life
At medium speed
But are you still inventing it?
Trying my best 🤷♂️
Speaker for the Dead is by far my favorite Orson Scott Card novel. I was blown away by that one the first time I read it.
I read somewhere that Orson wrote that book first, then realized he needed to write Ender's Game to explain it as a prequel.
Wow, I get to link two xkcd strips in one thread!
I don't know how I'd rank them, but what happens these books sticks with you. Speaker, Xenocide, Children of the Mind...fantastic writing. The other thing I enjoy is the Shadow series that follows Bean and the other Battle School kids. I love how well thought out the world is in the Enderverse.
This was also proven in real life with atomic clocks being placed at different elevations. Also another reason why GPS satellites (and satellites in general) need such accurate clocks in them.
So the secret to traveling through space and time IS love afterall. Take THAT ,science!
This is one of my favorite movies....Who knew that Matthew Mc was in the Tesseract all this time...now he's with Thanos...
Black hole sun Won't you come and Wash away the rain
Is that some analogy for nuking the transfer portal, or are you just in a Soundgarden / feeling Minnesota mood today?
Feeling Minnesota
You might find some comfort on the fishing thread :-)
Lookin' like the eye of Sauron, if you ask me...
They couldn't even hold the camera steady? So blurry
/s
Careful, Kitulu from South Park may stick his head out
via GIPHY
Love SP, but Chtulu was created by someone else.
HP Lovecraft
Are you sure? I heard it was H.P. Lovecraft
Whatever, nerd! 😉 /s
that's what i get for reading the comment but not the edited quote i guess
No worries. I thought you were correcting the H.P. vs. HP. Hah.
I had no clue but I stand corrected on both my spelling and the creation.
I've seen that picture...I thought that was the transfer portal.
Interesting, because I always believed this was the 1st pic of a black hole
A cesspool is not actually a black hole, though.
This isn't the first picture of a black hole.....
This one has been here for years....
you spelled "shit hole" wrong
They must've been serving free Brie and Zima to those in attendance to get a crowd that size.
Damnit that is so cool. CANNOT WAIT for them to get the James Webb up there.
I thought a black hole had such a strong gravitational force that even light could not escape it. If you need light to reflect and be able to escape the inescapable gravity of a black hole to obtain a photo, how does one get a photo of a black hole?
From what I understand, light is able to escape just outside of the event horizon. What we are seeing in the picture is the bright, super heated material just outside of the event horizon that is able to escape, hence the bright portion of the image
EDIT: better explanation below
link
So we are seeing the stuff that is essentially on its way in shape
That ring-like structure is most likely an accretion disk. This disc of matter is falling around/towards the black hole, and as it accelerates, frictional forces with the surrounding matter causes it to emit radiation; for black holes, that would be X-rays, as the gravitational forces are much stronger. These accretion disks are pretty much the only way we can locate black holes, as aside from supermassive black holes that form the center of galaxies, the only black holes we've found are in two-star systems where material from one star is leaking over to the black hole, where the rotational dynamics of the two star system causes that leakage to form an accretion disk.
Thank you, Dr. Simonetti. I haven't used this stuff since I left Tech, but you made it interesting enough that I still retain it.
We can also locate them by the gravitational affect that they have on orbits of surrounding planets, and stars.
That's relatively (pun intended) new, since it's been at least 24 years since I studied astrophysics. The stellar motion study that quantified the mass of Sag A* (the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy) was begun in 1995 (when I graduated undergrad) and the first mass estimates weren't inferred until 1998.
But you're right, that is another method of locating black holes. Some other methods can be found here.
I mean, if we can fake a moon landing, we can certainly fake a photo of a black hole...
no /s should be necessary
something something vaccinations are the devil
Nooo......
Feel like I should chime in here for a min.....
Kyrie is that you?
This is a picture of Virginia Tech's spring football coverage.
so THAT'S where Joe went... the golfing was just a ruse.
They found OP's mom?
Higher rez image
[queues-up Journey of the Sorcerer...]
Well, there is a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is
Strong urge to listen to Muse now and double-feature of Event Horizon and Interstellar tonight.
Event Horizon.... That is one fucked up movie.
Indeed. I thought it was pretty awesome when I was a teen, but I dont think the movie aged very well. The premise was awesome, but the pacing of the movie suffered I think.
Welp, that makes two different black holes I have seen...
Well, that sucks...
that gif needs a brazzers logo
For the business majors in the room. *cough* Me *cough*
Smithsonian Channel is having a special on Friday night at 9:00 about the Event Horizon Telescope and the process of collecting this image for anyone interested.
if maybe someone can record / show it to those of us without smithsonian channel.... *cough cough*
Maybe it'll get thrown up on YouTube eventually.... hopefully anyways
To me, that looked more like a picture of where my wallet goes when Ms. Susie wants a trip to somewhere extravagant.
It's a picture of my classroom.