Comments on: Astronomers Link Telescopes to Zoom In On Milky Way's Black Hole

By: James

James — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:32:05 +0000

I find it funny that people are flipping out over "the equivalent of seeing a baseball on Earth, from the moon" as being technology advanced.
I can't wait until I'm old and grey, and look back at this, and just laugh.

By: richard summers

richard summers — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:25:11 +0000

I assume from the various simulations I've seen and this one as well that a black hole, when eventually verified by optical means, will stand out as a huge shadow blocking light emitted by background objects. Is this so? Does the event horizon accumulation of matter of black holes yiedl some sort of disc around them, sort of like rings around an onyx Saturn; or would the black hold be completely surrounded by a halo of superheated matter and appear more as a slurpy plasma globe trailing wisps. Though a novice in these matters, it seems both might be possible, depending on whether the black hole is or is not spinning.

By: James Sheets

James Sheets — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:42:36 +0000

Since this appears to be the first time this procedure has been used at this scale, why not do it for an object a bit closer and more well known? Then the data from Sagittarius A may have been a bit easier to interpret…

By: John M. Kulick

John M. Kulick — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:21:35 +0000

Prediction.

They will discover that it is not a Super Massive Black hole at the center of our galaxy.

This will be born out by detection of material within the "event horizon".

Also there should be evidence of clusters of objects way too close to the "event horizon". They should of been "sucked in".

Also the doppler shifts of radiation from many objects will be "off". Instead of longer red shifts due to velocity of objects "falling" into the "supermassive black hole", there will be a mix of redshifts in both directions.

The cores of galaxes are where matter continues to stream into our Universe.

By: dollhopf

dollhopf — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:18:52 +0000

Aodhhan, thank you for the clarification.
I somewhat must have been off my trolley this morning while I read this article.

By: Aodhhan

Aodhhan — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:08:19 +0000

dollhopf…
Radio astronomy doesn't work with the visual light area of the spectrum, so it isn't possible. Throwing radio waves at it in order to get "reflective" waves back would only show it as part of the moons background, due to the size of the items left behind.
Nothing will quiet the sceptics unless they are on the moon touching it for themselves, since any picture made available would be classified as "photo shopped".

For information on how radio astronomy works go to: http://www.nrao.edu/index.php/learn/radioastronomy

This is a really fascinating way of looking at the universe, since it opens up different way to see things which are not normally visible or things which are obscured by dust!

By: Kendall

Kendall — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:51:50 +0000

I wonder if that glow around the SMBH is gravitational lensing of objects on the other side…

By: marcellus

marcellus — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:18:26 +0000

Very cool article. "A-Star" is only 10 million miles across at a distance of 30,000 light years. That is indeed, great resolution.

Think of the resolution we could get when we put a radio telescope on the Moon!

By: Ignoramus

Ignoramus — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:11:06 +0000

Congratulations, Nancy, on adding the comment "The concept of black holes, objects so dense that their gravitational pull prevents anything including light itself from ever escaping their grasp, has long been hypothesized, but their existence has not yet been proved conclusively."
The original Harvard Smithsonian press release did not contain such a properly nuanced statement.

By: NoAstronomer

NoAstronomer — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:12:05 +0000

amateur VLBI tied by GPS signals seems cool

Obviously I'm not an astronomer, and a *real* astronomer may chip in on this question, but in case they don't:

I don't believe that GPS accuracy alone is sufficient to be able to construct an amateur VLBI instrument. In order to construct a VLBI instrument the relative positions of the components has to be known to an accuracy that's close to the wavelength of that you are observing in. Even for VLBI radio astronomy that means you need an accuracy down to millimeters.

As for using this VLBI technique to 'see' the moon landers: Remember these observations were done using RADIO waves (1.3mm wavelength if I read the article correctly). AFAIK the moon landers are not significant radio sources.

By: Sriram

Sriram — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:07:33 +0000

Hey.. Awesome blog.. but can you make the RSS feeds deliver entire posts?? would love to read full posts in my feed reader. Thanks..

By: Bridh Hancock

Bridh Hancock — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:38:43 +0000

Bravo! Now to get a VLBI established here in Australia, beneath the very stary sky.
Ours will have to be a Federal Government & its CSIRO funded and run affair. Corporate involvement does not happen until the money comes in, and the corporations can get some.

I am sure that details on the Moon will follow. Ditto Mars and anywhere else. The focus is so tight, but computors can now do so much.

Go to, and make it so.

By: spacefrog

spacefrog — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:09:49 +0000

Nice idea Dollhopf – amateur VLBI tied by GPS signals seems cool. Anyone have any thoughts on whether this is feasible? Wonder what sort of precision could be achieved?

By: erichansa

erichansa — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:55:50 +0000

good job

By: dollhopf

dollhopf — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:55:31 +0000

Recently, on a 27th of August article, Nancy Atkinson reported on a US TV show called "Mythbusters": "Some folks who lived through the 1960's never believed the moon landings actually happened, and some how this belief persisted."

My suggestion is to use Very Long Baseline Interferometry to end this rubbish, because due to this article earthbound VLBI could indicate objects the size "of a baseball seen on the surface of the moon, 240,000 miles distant."

But the discarded metal left behind on the Apollo landing sites is much larger in size than baseballs. Why could we not picture them with VLBI?

Are sophisticated and well equiped amateur astronomers capable manage a worldwide project like "Amateur's Very Long Baseline Interferometry"?

Could such a project not give amateur astronomy a complete new meaning? And the masterpiece, the first proof of it's capability, could be the ultimate falsification of the conspiracy theory about the landings on the moon by producing photos of the abandoned lunar rovers and the landing modules.

Due to the global commercial communication networks everyone can synchronize any equipment with anybody's devices elsewhere worldwide.

By: Jcamjr

Jcamjr — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:54:28 +0000

Yes imaging the black hole "any black hole" would indeed be impressive!

By: Astrofiend

Astrofiend — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:52:51 +0000

Great work. I can't wait until high-resolution observations of this enigmatic region become routine…

By: Mr. Obvious

Mr. Obvious — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:13:55 +0000

Jon are u just now getting this info?

By: Nicole

Nicole — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:57:15 +0000

Wow! I remember hearing about this work back in 2003 when I was just learning about VLBI. I'm so excited that they actually did it!

By: Jon Hanford

Jon Hanford — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:32:37 +0000

This is only inevitable outcome of the search for the closest SMBH to the solar system. Earlier papers alluded to the presence of an unusually dense object at the position of Sag A*, & soon some of our Earth-based observatories tied to the same insecapable conclusion, that a SMBH (currently relatively-inactive) resides at the core of our MWG. Increased resolutions with next-gen telescopes will lead to an increased understanding of condensed matter physics in our own local galaxy.

By: Sili

Sili — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:22:23 +0000

I really hope we'll have at least one radio disk on the Moon in my time (and I'm only 31 …).

And please to be using kilometres.

By: Haplo

Haplo — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:17:57 +0000

Fat chance, the LHC will eat us all first

By: R2K

R2K — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:00:26 +0000

Figuring out of black holes exist or not would be a great leap also.

By: hiro

hiro — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:50:36 +0000

yeah, i totally agree. Where is the image of the super-massive black hole?

By: Dark Gnat

Dark Gnat — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:43:38 +0000

Getting an image of the black hole would be a huge leap in astronomy.