{"id":349,"date":"2020-08-28T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anyonecanscience.com\/?p=349"},"modified":"2020-08-27T19:11:14","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T23:11:14","slug":"m87-and-the-event-horizon-telescope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anyonecanscience.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/28\/m87-and-the-event-horizon-telescope\/","title":{"rendered":"A Glimpse Beyond the Horizon: M87* and The Event Horizon Telescope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over four nights in April 2017, eight different radio-wave telescopes across the globe fixed their gazes on a single infinitesimally small point\u2014the black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy (M87*). Around 55 million light-years from Earth, M87* and the hot plasma surrounding it create only a minuscule smudge on the night sky. To resolve an image from that distance would require a 13,000-kilometer telescope\u2014roughly the diameter of Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"It
It took four nights of synchronized observation from eight different radio-wave telescopes to generate a full image of M87*<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Alternatively, the researchers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Project<\/a> stitched together an Earth-sized telescope<\/a> using a set of radio-wave telescopes distributed around the globe. These telescopes were synchronized with incredible precision via hydrogen maser atomic clocks<\/a> installed at each location. As the Earth spun, the telescopes each collected fragments of the radio-wave transmissions coming from that infinitesimally small point.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The circumstances were auspicious. Cloud cover or technical difficulties at any of the locations would have significantly curtailed their results. As it was, they obtained 5 petabytes of data, which is roughly equivalent to the storage space found on 20,000 laptops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years, four data teams, and a bank of supercomputers transformed this immense cache of raw data into a single remarkable image. The debut black hole image resembled a blurry coffee cup stain (if your coffee happened to be a radioactive vermilion color). As underwhelming as it may seem to some, this blurry image contains unprecedented evidence for Einstein\u2019s theory of relativity and a glimpse at how supermassive black holes, like M87*, hold galaxies together. <\/p>\n\n\n