Why not take a picture of a closer black hole? The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are InWhy didn't the Event Horizon Telescope team mention Sagittarius A*?Can A Black Hole Exist?Star versus Black HoleCan things move faster than light inside the event horizon of a black hole?What conditions would lead to this event around the black hole in the Pictor A galaxy?Why do “they” portray colliding black holes like that?Black Hole growthWhat will happen to the shape of a galaxy when a super massive black hole lying in its center dies(evaporates out)?Black hole, escape velocity, going up?Shouldn't we not be able to see some black holes?Is this a black hole?
How technical should a Scrum Master be to effectively remove impediments?
Is this app Icon Browser Safe/Legit?
Why did Acorn's A3000 have red function keys?
Can you compress metal and what would be the consequences?
During Temple times, who can butcher a kosher animal?
Can we generate random numbers using irrational numbers like π and e?
What does Linus Torvalds mean when he says that Git "never ever" tracks a file?
Do these rules for Critical Successes and Critical Failures seem Fair?
Apparent duplicates between Haynes service instructions and MOT
Write faster on AT24C32
Shouldn't "much" here be used instead of "more"?
Is an up-to-date browser secure on an out-of-date OS?
Can a rogue use sneak attack with weapons that have the thrown property even if they are not thrown?
Did Scotland spend $250,000 for the slogan "Welcome to Scotland"?
Does the shape of a die affect the probability of a number being rolled?
Is bread bad for ducks?
Am I thawing this London Broil safely?
Is a "Democratic" Oligarchy-Style System Possible?
Earliest use of the term "Galois extension"?
One word riddle: Vowel in the middle
How to deal with fear of taking dependencies
How are circuits which use complex ICs normally simulated?
What is the most effective way of iterating a std::vector and why?
Is flight data recorder erased after every flight?
Why not take a picture of a closer black hole?
The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are InWhy didn't the Event Horizon Telescope team mention Sagittarius A*?Can A Black Hole Exist?Star versus Black HoleCan things move faster than light inside the event horizon of a black hole?What conditions would lead to this event around the black hole in the Pictor A galaxy?Why do “they” portray colliding black holes like that?Black Hole growthWhat will happen to the shape of a galaxy when a super massive black hole lying in its center dies(evaporates out)?Black hole, escape velocity, going up?Shouldn't we not be able to see some black holes?Is this a black hole?
$begingroup$
There are closer galaxies than Messier 87 for sure, even ours! It sparked my curiosity that they went with one 53 million light years away. Is there a reason for this?
black-hole supermassive-black-hole event-horizon-telescope
New contributor
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are closer galaxies than Messier 87 for sure, even ours! It sparked my curiosity that they went with one 53 million light years away. Is there a reason for this?
black-hole supermassive-black-hole event-horizon-telescope
New contributor
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are closer galaxies than Messier 87 for sure, even ours! It sparked my curiosity that they went with one 53 million light years away. Is there a reason for this?
black-hole supermassive-black-hole event-horizon-telescope
New contributor
$endgroup$
There are closer galaxies than Messier 87 for sure, even ours! It sparked my curiosity that they went with one 53 million light years away. Is there a reason for this?
black-hole supermassive-black-hole event-horizon-telescope
black-hole supermassive-black-hole event-horizon-telescope
New contributor
New contributor
New contributor
asked 1 hour ago
MorganMorgan
1312
1312
New contributor
New contributor
add a comment |
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
$begingroup$
I was surprised too when I first heard they were trying to image M87's black hole.
The short answer is because it's really, really big. It is 1500 times bigger (diameter) than our Sagittarius A*, and 2100 times farther away. This makes its apparent size about 70% of that of Sgr A*.
A cursory search of wikipedia's List of Largest black holes shows that there's no other black holes with a combination of size and closeness greater than these two.
A couple of other candidates are not too far off. Andromeda's black hole is 50x the size of ours, and at 100x the distance, it would appear half the size of Sgr A*. The Sombrero galaxy is 380 times farther way than Sgr A*, and has a black hole estimated to be 1 billion solar masses, which is 232 times Sr A*, resulting in an angular diameter about 60% of Sgr A*.
There appear to be many other considerations to which black holes were chosen, as explained in this similar question. At a guess these would include how obscured each black hole is with foreground dust/stars etc, how active (and therefore bright) the nuclei are, and their inclination w.r.t earth affecting which observatories could observe them at which times.
Edit: I've found another plausible candidate. NGC_1600 is 200 M light years away with a central black hole estimated to be 17 billion solar masses heavy. This would put it at about 40% the apparent diameter of Sgr A*.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are a few criteria necessary to see a black hole with the event-horizons telescope. They are, in importance:
- Active Feeding: you need a thick accretion disk with lots of matter accreting onto the black hole. M87 fits this criteria, and is a glut, consuming about 90 Earth masses a day.
- Apparent size. Even though it is 15 million light-years away, M87 is 6.5 billion solar masses. Since the radius of the event horizon scales linearly with mass, it’s distance is made up for by sheer scale.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ifUsing("editor", function ()
return StackExchange.using("mathjaxEditing", function ()
StackExchange.MarkdownEditor.creationCallbacks.add(function (editor, postfix)
StackExchange.mathjaxEditing.prepareWmdForMathJax(editor, postfix, [["$", "$"], ["\\(","\\)"]]);
);
);
, "mathjax-editing");
StackExchange.ready(function()
var channelOptions =
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "514"
;
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
createEditor();
);
else
createEditor();
);
function createEditor()
StackExchange.prepareEditor(
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader:
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
,
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
);
);
Morgan is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fastronomy.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f30339%2fwhy-not-take-a-picture-of-a-closer-black-hole%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
$begingroup$
I was surprised too when I first heard they were trying to image M87's black hole.
The short answer is because it's really, really big. It is 1500 times bigger (diameter) than our Sagittarius A*, and 2100 times farther away. This makes its apparent size about 70% of that of Sgr A*.
A cursory search of wikipedia's List of Largest black holes shows that there's no other black holes with a combination of size and closeness greater than these two.
A couple of other candidates are not too far off. Andromeda's black hole is 50x the size of ours, and at 100x the distance, it would appear half the size of Sgr A*. The Sombrero galaxy is 380 times farther way than Sgr A*, and has a black hole estimated to be 1 billion solar masses, which is 232 times Sr A*, resulting in an angular diameter about 60% of Sgr A*.
There appear to be many other considerations to which black holes were chosen, as explained in this similar question. At a guess these would include how obscured each black hole is with foreground dust/stars etc, how active (and therefore bright) the nuclei are, and their inclination w.r.t earth affecting which observatories could observe them at which times.
Edit: I've found another plausible candidate. NGC_1600 is 200 M light years away with a central black hole estimated to be 17 billion solar masses heavy. This would put it at about 40% the apparent diameter of Sgr A*.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I was surprised too when I first heard they were trying to image M87's black hole.
The short answer is because it's really, really big. It is 1500 times bigger (diameter) than our Sagittarius A*, and 2100 times farther away. This makes its apparent size about 70% of that of Sgr A*.
A cursory search of wikipedia's List of Largest black holes shows that there's no other black holes with a combination of size and closeness greater than these two.
A couple of other candidates are not too far off. Andromeda's black hole is 50x the size of ours, and at 100x the distance, it would appear half the size of Sgr A*. The Sombrero galaxy is 380 times farther way than Sgr A*, and has a black hole estimated to be 1 billion solar masses, which is 232 times Sr A*, resulting in an angular diameter about 60% of Sgr A*.
There appear to be many other considerations to which black holes were chosen, as explained in this similar question. At a guess these would include how obscured each black hole is with foreground dust/stars etc, how active (and therefore bright) the nuclei are, and their inclination w.r.t earth affecting which observatories could observe them at which times.
Edit: I've found another plausible candidate. NGC_1600 is 200 M light years away with a central black hole estimated to be 17 billion solar masses heavy. This would put it at about 40% the apparent diameter of Sgr A*.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I was surprised too when I first heard they were trying to image M87's black hole.
The short answer is because it's really, really big. It is 1500 times bigger (diameter) than our Sagittarius A*, and 2100 times farther away. This makes its apparent size about 70% of that of Sgr A*.
A cursory search of wikipedia's List of Largest black holes shows that there's no other black holes with a combination of size and closeness greater than these two.
A couple of other candidates are not too far off. Andromeda's black hole is 50x the size of ours, and at 100x the distance, it would appear half the size of Sgr A*. The Sombrero galaxy is 380 times farther way than Sgr A*, and has a black hole estimated to be 1 billion solar masses, which is 232 times Sr A*, resulting in an angular diameter about 60% of Sgr A*.
There appear to be many other considerations to which black holes were chosen, as explained in this similar question. At a guess these would include how obscured each black hole is with foreground dust/stars etc, how active (and therefore bright) the nuclei are, and their inclination w.r.t earth affecting which observatories could observe them at which times.
Edit: I've found another plausible candidate. NGC_1600 is 200 M light years away with a central black hole estimated to be 17 billion solar masses heavy. This would put it at about 40% the apparent diameter of Sgr A*.
$endgroup$
I was surprised too when I first heard they were trying to image M87's black hole.
The short answer is because it's really, really big. It is 1500 times bigger (diameter) than our Sagittarius A*, and 2100 times farther away. This makes its apparent size about 70% of that of Sgr A*.
A cursory search of wikipedia's List of Largest black holes shows that there's no other black holes with a combination of size and closeness greater than these two.
A couple of other candidates are not too far off. Andromeda's black hole is 50x the size of ours, and at 100x the distance, it would appear half the size of Sgr A*. The Sombrero galaxy is 380 times farther way than Sgr A*, and has a black hole estimated to be 1 billion solar masses, which is 232 times Sr A*, resulting in an angular diameter about 60% of Sgr A*.
There appear to be many other considerations to which black holes were chosen, as explained in this similar question. At a guess these would include how obscured each black hole is with foreground dust/stars etc, how active (and therefore bright) the nuclei are, and their inclination w.r.t earth affecting which observatories could observe them at which times.
Edit: I've found another plausible candidate. NGC_1600 is 200 M light years away with a central black hole estimated to be 17 billion solar masses heavy. This would put it at about 40% the apparent diameter of Sgr A*.
edited 17 mins ago
answered 47 mins ago
IngolifsIngolifs
1,5721619
1,5721619
add a comment |
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are a few criteria necessary to see a black hole with the event-horizons telescope. They are, in importance:
- Active Feeding: you need a thick accretion disk with lots of matter accreting onto the black hole. M87 fits this criteria, and is a glut, consuming about 90 Earth masses a day.
- Apparent size. Even though it is 15 million light-years away, M87 is 6.5 billion solar masses. Since the radius of the event horizon scales linearly with mass, it’s distance is made up for by sheer scale.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are a few criteria necessary to see a black hole with the event-horizons telescope. They are, in importance:
- Active Feeding: you need a thick accretion disk with lots of matter accreting onto the black hole. M87 fits this criteria, and is a glut, consuming about 90 Earth masses a day.
- Apparent size. Even though it is 15 million light-years away, M87 is 6.5 billion solar masses. Since the radius of the event horizon scales linearly with mass, it’s distance is made up for by sheer scale.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are a few criteria necessary to see a black hole with the event-horizons telescope. They are, in importance:
- Active Feeding: you need a thick accretion disk with lots of matter accreting onto the black hole. M87 fits this criteria, and is a glut, consuming about 90 Earth masses a day.
- Apparent size. Even though it is 15 million light-years away, M87 is 6.5 billion solar masses. Since the radius of the event horizon scales linearly with mass, it’s distance is made up for by sheer scale.
$endgroup$
There are a few criteria necessary to see a black hole with the event-horizons telescope. They are, in importance:
- Active Feeding: you need a thick accretion disk with lots of matter accreting onto the black hole. M87 fits this criteria, and is a glut, consuming about 90 Earth masses a day.
- Apparent size. Even though it is 15 million light-years away, M87 is 6.5 billion solar masses. Since the radius of the event horizon scales linearly with mass, it’s distance is made up for by sheer scale.
answered 16 mins ago
cmscms
2164
2164
add a comment |
add a comment |
Morgan is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Morgan is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Morgan is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Morgan is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Thanks for contributing an answer to Astronomy Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
Use MathJax to format equations. MathJax reference.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fastronomy.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f30339%2fwhy-not-take-a-picture-of-a-closer-black-hole%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown