Event Horizon Telescope will soon take the first black hole photo

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is finally ready to take a picture of Sagittarius A*. From April 5th to 14th this year, the virtual telescope that’s been in the making for the past two decades will peer into the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy. EHT is actually an array of radio telescopes located in different countries around the globe, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile.

By using a technique called very-long-baseline interferometry, the EHT team turns all the participating observatories into one humongous telescope that encompasses the whole planet. We need a telescope that big and powerful, because Sagittarius A* is but a tiny pinprick in the sky for us. While scientists believe it has a mass of around four million suns, it also only measures around 20 million km or so across and is located 26,000 light-years away from our planet. The EHT team says it’s like looking at a grapefruit or a DVD on the moon from Earth.

To prepare the participating observatories, the team equipped them with atomic clocks for the most precise time stamps and hard-drive modules with enormous storage capacities. Since the scientists are expecting to gather a colossal amount of data, they deployed enough modules to match the capacity of 10,000 laptops. Those hard drives will be flown out to the MIT Haystack Observatory, where imaging algorithms will make sense of EHT’s data, once the observation period is done.

The researchers said it could take until the beginning of 2018 before we see humanity’s first photo of a black hole. As for what they’re expecting to see, it’ll be something like what their simulation yielded last year:

Based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity, we’re supposed to see a crescent of light surrounding a black blob. That light is emitted by gas and dust before the black hole devours them, while the dark blob is the shadow cast over that mayhem. But what if we see something else altogether? Team leader Sheperd Doeleman from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told BBC:

"As I’ve said before, it’s never a good idea to bet against Einstein, but if we did see something that was very different from what we expect we would have to reassess the theory of gravity."

[Image credit: NASA/UMass/D.Wang et al., IR: NASA/STScI / Feryel Ozel (event horizon simulation)]

Via: ScienceAlert

Source: BBC

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Apollo 11’s crew capsule is going on tour

The Apollo 11 space capsule was displayed around the country in 1970 and 1971, shortly after it safely brought Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins back from their iconic 1969 moon trip. Since then, the command module has lived in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Over the next few years, though, the spacecraft will get some fresh air as it embarks on its first national tour in nearly half a century.

The traveling exhibit, called "Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission," will reach four US cities in 2018 and 2019, the lunar mission’s 50th anniversary year. All told, the display will include the space capsule, along with other "one-of-a-kind artifacts." The exhibition’s locations and dates are as follows:

  • Space Center Houston — October 14, 2017 to March 18, 2018
  • St. Louis Science Center — April 14, 2018 to September 3, 2018
  • Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh — September 29, 2018 to February 18, 2019
  • The Museum of Flight, Seattle — March 16, 2019 to September 2, 2019

Once the module is off the road, it will return to its home at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. There, it will be part of a permanent "Destination Moon" exhibit, which opens in 2020 and will explore humanity’s relationship with lunar travel from ancient times to today.

The space capsule isn’t exactly easy to transport or host: Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service project director Kathrin Halpern told NPR that the module weighs over 13,600 pounds. She added that for these and other reasons, this tour is "likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to see this historic spacecraft outside of Washington, DC. So enjoy it while you can, since it’s not a giant leap to say it will be awhile before Apollo 11 leaves the Smithsonian museum again.

Via: NPR

Source: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

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