Home » Technology » [사이테크+] ‘Event Horizon Telescope’ observes black hole M87 * with highest resolution ever | Yonhap News

[사이테크+] ‘Event Horizon Telescope’ observes black hole M87 * with highest resolution ever | Yonhap News

International research team “First application of 0.87 mm wave to ETH… The highest resolution in the history of black hole observation”

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Juyoung Lee = The ‘Event Horizon Telescope’ (ETH), an Earth-sized virtual telescope that connects radio telescopes around the world, captured a central black hole (M87*) of the M87 galaxy with wavelength. of 0.87 mm and a frequency of 345 GHz We managed to observe at the highest resolution.

The research team said that they successfully applied the 0.87 mm (345 GHz) wavelength to very long baseline radio interferometry (VLBI) for the first time, and will be able to clearly capture the region directly beyond the boundary of the supermassive black hole. by increasing the resolution of the black hole image by more than 50%.

photo-group">
The M87 galaxy black hole has been observed at the highest resolution ever

The M87 galaxy black hole has been observed at the highest resolution ever

The black hole (M87*) at the center of the galaxy M87 observed by the Event Horizon Telescope (ETH) at wavelengths of 86 GHz (red), 230 GHz (green), and 345 GHz (blue), and a simulated image made up in one. With the success of observing at the 345 GHz wavelength, the image became clearer and structures, sizes and shapes that were previously difficult to identify were clearly shown. [EHT, D. Pesce, A. Chael 제공. 재판매 및 DB 금지]

The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (ETH Collaboration) reported the ETH observational radio waves that captured images of the black hole 2019 M87 * and the Sagittarius 2022 A black hole (Sgr A *) in the international academic journal The Astronomical Journal on the 28th announced that it had succeeded in observing the black hole M87 * at the highest resolution ever, extending to GHz.

advertisement

Dr. Alexander Raymond of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), co-leader of the study, said, “The current observations of the black hole M87* and the black hole Sgr A* used a wavelength of 1.3 mm (230 GHz), and the “At a wave of 0.87 mm (345 GHz), the image becomes clearer and more detailed, so we will be able to find new features that were impossible before. prove it,” he said.

photo-group">
Black hole M87 seen at frequencies of 230GHz (left) and 345GHz

Black hole M87 seen at frequencies of 230GHz (left) and 345GHz

The ‘Event Horizon Telescope’ (ETH), which will connect large radio telescopes around the world to form an Earth-sized telescope, succeeded in spotting a black hole at the center of the galaxy M87 (M87*) at the highest ever resolution at a frequency of 345 GHz, which corresponds to a wavelength of 0.87 mm [EHT, D. Pesce, A. Chael 제공. 재판매 및 DB 금지]

ETH has between 15 and 20 radio telescopes around the world, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Collective (ALMA) in the Atacama Desert in Chile, the 30-meter IRAM telescope in Spain, the Northern Extended Millimeter Array in France (NOEMA), and the Greenland Telescope.

To increase the resolution of observational images, larger telescopes must be used or the distance between the interferometer observations must be further separated. However, since the distance between observatories at ETH is already at a maximum, the research team has been investigating ways to observe light at shorter wavelengths to further increase resolution.

However, since the 0.87 mm wavelength is absorbed much more by water vapor in the atmosphere than the 1.3 mm wavelength, there is a problem in that it is difficult for radio telescopes to detect short-wavelength radio waves. soon they will be released by the black hole.

photo-group">
The Event Horizon Telescope (ETH) connects the world's radio telescopes

The Event Horizon Telescope (ETH) connects the world’s radio telescopes

ETH is created by connecting 15 to 20 radio telescopes, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), a large radio telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile, the IRAM 30m telescope in Spain, Array France’s Northern Extended Millimeter (NOEMA), and the Greenland Telescope It is a virtual telescope the size of the Earth. The picture shows the six telescopes used in this study.[CfA/SAO, Mel Weiss 제공. 재판매 및 DB 금지]

In this study, the research team used six ETH telescopes, including ALMA, the Atacama Pathfinder (APEX), and the IRAM 30m telescope in Spain, to observe the black hole M87* at a resolution of 19 microarcseconds using radio waves with a wavelength of 0.87 mm succeeded in doing so.

However, the research team said that although this study was a preliminary experiment using only a portion of the ETH and that it succeeded in looking at a wavelength of 0.87 mm, images have not yet been obtained due to a lack of data. It will be at a level where you can see a bottle cap on the surface of the moon from Earth It was explained that it would be possible to increase it to 13 microarc seconds.

“By observing the gas around a black hole at different wavelengths, we can unlock the secrets of how the black hole attracts and gathers material and fires its powerful jets,” said Dr. Shepard Doelmann of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), co-director of the study “I think we can solve it,” he said.

◆ 출처 : The Astronomical Journal, AW Raymond, S. Doeleman, et al., ‘The first detection of very long baseline interference at 870㎛, https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ad5bdb

scitech@yna.co.kr

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.