The Event Horizon Telescope observes M87* and Sagittarius A*
Over a handful of nights in April 2017 the array observed both targets at 1.3 millimetres, requiring simultaneously usable weather at sites in Chile, Hawaii, Mexico, Arizona, Spain and Antarctica. Petabytes of data were recorded to hard drives and shipped physically to correlators in Massachusetts and Bonn. The South Pole recordings could not be flown out until the austral winter ended, so correlation of the full campaign did not begin until late in the year - one reason the results appeared two years after the observations.
Observed — measured or witnessed, with the observation cited.
Subjects
- Event Horizon Telescope · network · Global array · not located
- Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array · research facility · Chile
- South Pole Telescope · research facility · Antarctica (Antarctic Treaty area) · not located
- Very long baseline interferometry · technology · not located
- M87* - the supermassive black hole in Messier 87 · celestial body · Virgo Cluster, constellation Virgo as seen from Earth · not located
- Sagittarius A* - the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way · celestial body · Galactic centre, constellation Sagittarius as seen from Earth · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
Reports the first image of a black hole shadow, an asymmetric ring about 42 microarcseconds across, together with the array, observing campaign and imaging methodology. V55 VERIFICATION BASIS: not consulted in session; WebFetch to iopscience.iop.org and eventhorizontelescope.org was refused by the egress proxy and no search could be issued. Volume and article number are from recall of a canonical citation.
The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration) · 2019-04-10 · Partly verified
Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, Astrophysical Journal Letters 875, L1 (2019)
Recorded on Event Horizon Telescope
- Heber Curtis records a curious straight ray in Messier 87
- A mechanism for extracting energy from a spinning black hole
- A star is tracked through a complete close approach to the Galactic centre
- The Event Horizon Telescope observes M87* and Sagittarius A*
- S2 passes pericentre and its light is measurably redshifted
- The first image of a black hole shadow is published
- The orbit of S2 is shown to precess as general relativity predicts
- The Nobel Prize in Physics recognises black holes twice over
- The M87* ring is imaged in polarised light
- The black hole at the centre of our own galaxy is imaged
- A second epoch shows the ring persists and the bright spot moves
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- A second epoch shows the ring persists and the bright spot moves · 2024
- The black hole at the centre of our own galaxy is imaged · 2022-05-12
- The M87* ring is imaged in polarised light · 2021-03
- The Nobel Prize in Physics recognises black holes twice over · 2020-10-06
- The orbit of S2 is shown to precess as general relativity predicts · 2020
- The first image of a black hole shadow is published · 2019-04-10
- S2 passes pericentre and its light is measurably redshifted · 2018-05
- A star is tracked through a complete close approach to the Galactic centre · 2002