Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Big Radio Astronomy Announcement


bison

Recommended Posts

What is described as a huge announcement is due on April 10th.  A worldwide network of radio astronomy observatories called the Event Horizon Telescope has apparently done something, or found something of great interest. It's surmised by some that this concerns the mammoth black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Working in concert, these observatories may have made enough observations to compile an image of sorts, made of radio waves in the range 230 - 450 GigaHertz, instead of light. If this is so, it will be the first time that an image of the detectable surroundings of the black hole at the core of the Milky Way, or, indeed, of any black hole, has been achieved.  Whatever it is, we'll hear about it, a week from this coming Wednesday.

Please find a link below, for further information.

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-event-horizon-telescope-is-about-to-make-a-hyuuuuge-announcement  

Edited by bison
  • Like 6
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
19 minutes ago, bison said:

What is described as a huge announcement is due on April 10th.  A worldwide network of radio astronomy observatories called the Event Horizon Telescope has apparently done something, or found something of great interest. It's surmised by some that this concerns the mammoth black hole at the center of our galaxy.

 

What I surmise is it could possibly be 2 black holes orbiting one another.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably just confirmation that a supermassive sun is at the centre of our galaxy..

^_^

Edited by tmcom
Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, tmcom said:

Probably just confirmation that a supermassive sun is at the centre of our galaxy..

^_^

Well if that were the case our galaxy would be really short lived. The bigger they are the faster they go boom. :yes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was a discussion in this section of the forum in late January - early February, about the ALMA millimeter wave radio telescope detecting a narrow beam from the the black hole at the center of the galaxy. This seems strange on two counts. First, that the narrow beam, 300 millionths of a degree wide, should just happen to be pointing almost directly at Earth. 

Second, that the beam is not pointing upward and downward  from the galactic plane, as would be expected in a supermassive black hole at the the center of the galaxy. Such an orientation is consistent in astrophysical jets observed emanating from from the cores of other galaxies.   It occurs to me that this oddity may play a part in the 'huge announcement' planned for the 10th.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, bison said:

There was a discussion in this section of the forum in late January - early February, about the ALMA millimeter wave radio telescope detecting a narrow beam from the the black hole at the center of the galaxy. This seems strange on two counts. First, that the narrow beam, 300 millionths of a degree wide, should just happen to be pointing almost directly at Earth. 

Second, that the beam is not pointing upward and downward  from the galactic plane, as would be expected in a supermassive black hole at the the center of the galaxy. Such an orientation is consistent in astrophysical jets observed emanating from from the cores of other galaxies.   It occurs to me that this oddity may play a part in the 'huge announcement' planned for the 10th.  

I forgot about that, you are probably right.

The sheer coincidence of it pointing at us, the only known life in the universe, is a bit mind boggling. Maybe we should focus our search for other life further down the same line. It points at us, it must be pointing at other planets as well, right back to the source. When it comes down to it, it's either:

1. It points at us because we are here

2. We are here because it points at us

3. It's a complete coincidence that it points at us, crazy as that is

Edited by moonman
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, crazy coincidences do happen. I doubt that the beam is strong enough to affect us, except in how we react to finally receiving it, via radio astronomy. The center of the galaxy is a valid indicator of where to direct SETI searches; a bearing that any intelligent race might have thought of. It highlights the nearest part of the galaxy which is denser in stars and planets than our current position.

After early February, discussion of the mysterious beam seemed to quickly fade away. Perhaps we'll have some more answers on the 10th, which is now only 8 days away.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The announcement will be streamed on youtube .

 On 10 April 2019, at 15:00 CEST (13:00 UTC, 9:00 EST, 14:00 British Summer Time) the European Commission, European Research Council, and the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project will present results they are describing as "groundbreaking".

 

 

 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

They will announce that we are in the center of a spinning universe spin driven by the black hole.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure it'll be something like stating the obvious, but I hope to be pleasantly surprised

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Given that the project was set up to make the first direct observation of a black hole event-horizon it would seem to me that the most likely announcement they will make is that they have made the first direct observation of a black hole event-horizon.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Making a radio wave image of the gigantic black hole at the center of our galaxy is precisely what the ALMA observatory made possible, when it recently began to work cooperatively with the Event Horizon Telescope system. The detection of the radio beam inferred to be pointing almost directly at Earth was simply an especially noteworthy part of the results. 

It can be assumed that the work of the EHT, since the previous announcement, has uncovered something more about Sagittarius A*, as our galaxy's central black hole is known. Further knowledge about the mysterious radio beam would be a logical outcome of this very latest work. 

The Event Horizon Telescope is a system of 13 radio astronomy observatories throughout the world, from Hawaii to North and South America, Antarctica, and Europe. They use Very Long Baseline Interferometry to produce the resolving power of a radio telescope the size of the entire Earth. This system produce so much data that it must be stored on hard disks and physically transported to the facility that integrates the various observatories' results into one coherent picture.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, bison said:

 

The Event Horizon Telescope is a system of 13 radio astronomy observatories throughout the world, from Hawaii to North and South America, Antarctica, and Europe. They use Very Long Baseline Interferometry to produce the resolving power of a radio telescope the size of the entire Earth. This system produce so much data that it must be stored on hard disks and physically transported to the facility that integrates the various observatories' results into one coherent picture.  

Why the hard disks?

I get that there must be an enormous quantity of data being received at the 13 observatories, presumable so much that it would make YouTube stutter and ruin online gaming for teenagers with the bandwidth required, but if each observatories computer system can find the time to receive the data and then write it to a hard drive, so that the hard drives can then be sent to the integration facility, why couldn't the observatories use a dedicated network and directly uplink/downlink to the integration site?

Maybe that would require a couple of dedicated communication satellites, perhaps a cheaper alternative would be to have a few big mirrors in orbit and then send the data modulated in lasers and bounce it to where it needs to go.

 

I think I've answered my own question and started to ramble! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The brief article, linked below, explains about Very Long Baseline Interferometry. The section 'How VLBI works' mentions the common practice of physically transporting the hard disks to the integration site. Some experiments have reportedly been done with direct linkage via fiber-optic cables, but I gather that physical transport is still the usual method used. A very fine degree of time-keeping is necessary when different VLBI files are integrated into one image.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-long-baseline_interferometry

Edited by bison
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Linked below is an interesting article on what the Event Horizon Telescope announcement may reveal. It even has simulated images of what they expected the real image may look like. The article is from October 2018. It mentions that only 7 observatories are in the EHT system. Either six more have been added in the last six months, or the writer had an old, smaller figure.

Interesting that along with all the other knowledge that will be, or may be gained, there is a new, more rigorous than ever test of Relativity  Theory tied up in this image. The extreme conditions around the mega black hole just may crack Dr. Einstein's very long run of always being right. No one is betting that it will do so, but apparently it could. 

https://www.universetoday.com/140268/heres-what-the-first-images-from-the-event-horizon-might-look-like  

Edited by bison
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.