SonderKommando
Eat, Lift, Grow, Repeat....
+564|6629|The darkside of Denver
Last night I watched an awesome documentary on the NatGeo Science channel about black holes.  The program featured a Scientist from MIT's Haystack observatory who has made it his career goal to be the first ever human to observe a black hole.  Granted I'm no astrophysicist but the gist of his theory seems to be that black holes warp the visible light that exists behind them in the background. This theoretically gives the black hole a large glowing halo of sorts.  His plan is to attempt to view this halo to identify the black hole, his target is the suspected blackhole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy named Sagittarius A*.  The black hole that is thought to be here is rumored to be four million times as dense as the earths sun.  It boggles my mind personally to imagine something that dense, yet so small.

To be able to see this far into space the MIT team would need to construct a telescope roughly the size of the continental United States.  Obviously this is a logistical impossibility by today's standards.  The solution?   The team at MIT has created a program that uses data from radio telescopes throughout the United States (I mean TONS of data, the show showed RACKS upon RACKS of what appears to be hot swappable SANS devices) that are plugged into an MIT supercomputer to create a large "virtual telescope" 

Using this new telescope the team at MIT can produce images of much greater detail and from much greater distances than ever thought possible.  What do you folks at DST think about this type of technology and research?  The discovery and observation of these singularities could send science as we know it back to the drawing board... Which isnt a bad thing of course, but I find myself wonder about the legitimacy of results from a "virtual telescope". 

MIT News
The article is a little old, from 2008...

Here's a basic diagram of how the radio telescope clustering works.  Not sure how relevant it is, the scientist on the program stated teh array contained observatories and radio telescopes accross the continental US and the amount of data arrays they showed on screen literally left my jaw hanging.

https://64.202.120.86/upload/image/new-news/2008/october/a-close-look-at-the-black-hole-in-the-milky-way/creating-a-black-hole-teles.jpg
nlsme1
Member
+32|5387
Saw a similar show. The scientist had 3 pictures. One of a star, one of a super nova, and one of nothing. All 3 from the same place. He said the nothing, was beleived to be a black hole.
Mekstizzle
WALKER
+3,611|6591|London, England
large baseline arrays are nothing new, they call it "very long baseline interferometry"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_long_ … rferometry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Long_Baseline_Array

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/VLBA.jpg/350px-VLBA.jpg


Unless this is something that's abit different
SonderKommando
Eat, Lift, Grow, Repeat....
+564|6629|The darkside of Denver

Mekstizzle wrote:

large baseline arrays are nothing new, they call it "very long baseline interferometry"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_long_ … rferometry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Long_Baseline_Array

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c … x-VLBA.jpg


Unless this is something that's abit different
Cool mek, yea this seems to be same technology being used by the guys at MIT.  I just think this stuff is absolutely amazing.  The documentary I saw was the first I've heard of this method.   

This looks to be an amazing series coming up.

Through the Wormhole
AussieReaper
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+5,761|6123|what

pfff, Australia and New Zealand already built one of these, and we've already looked at Centaurus A's blackhole.

You think the Sagittarius A galaxy is impressive with a black hole that is four million times as dense as the earths sun? Centaurus A houses a monster black hole 50 million times the mass of the Sun.

Our array can can see further than the Hubble Telescope, with our equipment on the ground...

Astronomers at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific Research Organization (CSRIO) have revealed the hidden face of an enormous galaxy called Centaurus A, which emits a radio glow covering an area 200 times bigger than the full Moon.

The galaxy's radio waves have been painstakingly transformed into a highly detailed image, which is being unveiled to the public for the first time.

Centaurus A lies 14 million light-years away, in the southern constellation Centaurus, and houses a monster black hole 50 million times the mass of the Sun.

The galaxy's black hole generates jets of radio-emitting particles that billow millions of light years out into space.

The spectacular sight is invisible to the naked eye.

"If your eyes could see radio waves you would look up in the sky and see the radio glow from this galaxy covering an area 200 times bigger than the full Moon," said the lead scientist for the project, Dr Ilana Feain of CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF).

"Only a small percentage of galaxies are of this kind. They're like the blue whales of space – huge and rare."

Seen at radio wavelengths, Centaurus A is so big and bright that no-one else has ever tried making such an image.

"This is the most detailed radio image ever made of Centaurus A, and indeed of any galaxy that produces radio jets," said Dr Lewis Ball, Acting Director of the ATNF.

"Few other groups in the world have the skills and the facilities to make such an image, and we were the first to try."

Dr Feain and her team used CSIRO's Australia Telescope Compact Array telescope near Narrabri, NSW, to observe the galaxy for more than 1200 hours, over several years.

This produced 406 individual images, which were 'mosaiced' together to make one large image.

Dr Feain combined the Compact Array data and data taken from CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope.

Processing the image – combining the data, taking out the effects of radio interference, and adjusting the dynamic range – took a further 10,000 hours.

Astronomers will use the image to help them understand how black holes and radio jets interact with a galaxy's stars and dust, and how the galaxy has evolved over time.

Centaurus A is the closest of the galaxies with a supermassive black hole producing radio jets, which makes it the easiest to study.

Astronomers are interested in studying more of these rare, massive galaxies to determine the role black holes play in galaxy formation and growth.

Centaurus A was one of the first cosmic radio sources known outside our own Galaxy.

The (visible) galaxy was discovered and recorded at Parramatta Observatory near Sydney in 1826. It was later catalogued as  NGC 5128.

As a radio source, Centaurus A was discovered from Dover Heights in Sydney by CSIRO scientists in 1947.

The CSIRO image of Centaurus A were presented on Friday July 3 at an international conference, The Many Faces of Centaurus A, at the Mint in Sydney.
Source dated July 7th, 2009

https://i48.tinypic.com/2hxsief.png

A composite image showing the size of the radio glow from the galaxy Centaurus A in comparison to the full Moon. The white dots in the sky represent not stars but background radio sources — galaxies like Centaurus A in the distant universe. The foreground antennas are of CSIRO's Australia Telescope Compact Array, which gathered the data.
https://i.imgur.com/maVpUMN.png
King_County_Downy
shitfaced
+2,791|6567|Seattle

That's racist.
Sober enough to know what I'm doing, drunk enough to really enjoy doing it
krazed
Admiral of the Bathtub
+619|6750|Great Brown North
white hole
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

SonderKommando wrote:

NatGeo Science channel
Go to these guys.

http://www.teach12.com/teach12.aspx?ai=16281
13urnzz
Banned
+5,830|6467

i wonder why the Russians call them 'dead stars' instead of 'black holes' . . .
AussieReaper
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+5,761|6123|what

burnzz wrote:

i wonder why the Russians call them 'dead stars' instead of 'black holes' . . .
It's weird because not all dead stars form black holes. Some become nubula.
https://i.imgur.com/maVpUMN.png
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS
Plus, there's a chance not all black holes are dead stars.

Try to get round that one for size.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
LostFate
Same shit, Different Arsehole
+95|6455|England
You would have to travel at the speed of light for one hundred thousand years just to get out of our galaxy!!

Wtf is the universe?
SonderKommando
Eat, Lift, Grow, Repeat....
+564|6629|The darkside of Denver

LostFate wrote:

You would have to travel at the speed of light for one hundred thousand years just to get out of our galaxy!!

Wtf is the universe?
I know right?  Theres MILLIONS of galaxies too, it just boggles my mind.  Plus when you factor in parallel dimensional theories the number grows to basically infinity.
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6440
if you wanna talk about interesting discovery/natgeo/sci-channel space documentaries...

screw black-holes, they're so 1990.

this one i saw today was talking about how the relative gravities of the milky way and sister-galaxy, andromeda, were bringing them together for a cosmic collision. most of the universe is expanding and has been since the big bang, but some systems kinda 'twin' together and their relative gravitational fields act upon one another and create a sort of 'reverse' effect. some scientific bigwigs at an observatory/MIT-like institution set up this huge computer model of what the collision would look like - over several billion years of galactic movement. it was pretty damn beautiful.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England
Am I the only one that feels that stuff like this is an intense waste of both economic and human resources?
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
NooBesT
Pizzahitler
+873|6439

AussieReaper wrote:

Our array can can see further than the Hubble Telescope, with our equipment on the ground...
Hubble is a normal telescope and it only has a 2,4 meter mirror. Also it's on a low orbit.
https://i.imgur.com/S9bg2.png
SonderKommando
Eat, Lift, Grow, Repeat....
+564|6629|The darkside of Denver

JohnG@lt wrote:

Am I the only one that feels that stuff like this is an intense waste of both economic and human resources?
Yes. Studying the nature of the universe, our galaxy, and our solar system will unlock realms of science that we probably cannot even begin to comprehend today.

@Uzi, Yea I've heard of cosmic collisions of galaxies before.  From what I understand they can be quite violent.
NooBesT
Pizzahitler
+873|6439

SonderKommando wrote:

@Uzi, Yea I've heard of cosmic collisions of galaxies before.  From what I understand they can be quite violent.
Not really since most of the space is empty. Not many objects would actually collide, the galaxies would just merge to form a bigger galaxy.
https://i.imgur.com/S9bg2.png
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6440

NooBesT wrote:

SonderKommando wrote:

@Uzi, Yea I've heard of cosmic collisions of galaxies before.  From what I understand they can be quite violent.
Not really since most of the space is empty. Not many objects would actually collide, the galaxies would just merge to form a bigger galaxy.
err watch the scientific models...

the 2 colossal gravitational forces create a big mess. it's not just like two concentric circles gently gliding over one another.

these are the 2 galaxies post-collision

https://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2002/09/ill/i0209aw.jpg

they basically spiral and wrap back around to then form a 'natural' milky-way shape again. hard to explain.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Flaming_Maniac
prince of insufficient light
+2,490|6677|67.222.138.85
So are they measuring Hawking radiation? Because that's kind of what it sounds like but not really, and they never actually said it.

Uzique look up binary systems.

And the "collisions" are interesting becuase of course there are no or few actually collisions, but it's complex gravitational fields moving through each other that rips the galaxies apart.
Poseidon
Fudgepack DeQueef
+3,253|6507|Long Island, New York

NooBesT wrote:

SonderKommando wrote:

@Uzi, Yea I've heard of cosmic collisions of galaxies before.  From what I understand they can be quite violent.
Not really since most of the space is empty. Not many objects would actually collide, the galaxies would just merge to form a bigger galaxy.
irregular galaxes, they're really not defined by any standard like spiral or elliptical galaxies
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6440

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

So are they measuring Hawking radiation? Because that's kind of what it sounds like but not really, and they never actually said it.

Uzique look up binary systems.

And the "collisions" are interesting becuase of course there are no or few actually collisions, but it's complex gravitational fields moving through each other that rips the galaxies apart.
right so you just namedropped the scientific nomenclature for the exact same thing i described...

wiki-warrior to the rescue

like it 'adds' anything to my post
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Flaming_Maniac
prince of insufficient light
+2,490|6677|67.222.138.85
lol binary systems are completely different, you are describing galactic collisions while binary systems are solar systems with two stars gravitationally entangled a la Star Wars. I mentioned it because their interactions can be interesting to watch, particularly when they eventually get close enough that one star starts sucking off mass and "eating" the other, sometimes resulting in a supernova. Same idea as what you posted but a little more distinct rather than the collisions of blobs.
cpt.fass1
The Cap'n Can Make it Hap'n
+329|6666|NJ
So they're basically useing the same theory that we have in place with Cell Phone Towers?
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS

NooBesT wrote:

SonderKommando wrote:

@Uzi, Yea I've heard of cosmic collisions of galaxies before.  From what I understand they can be quite violent.
Not really since most of the space is empty. Not many objects would actually collide, the galaxies would just merge to form a bigger galaxy.
No, not really. Uzique is correct. The forces involved in high-speed galaxy collisions rip them apart.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman

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