lowtek
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We've managed to directly image the event horizon around a black hole, using a planetary network (with one part here in Arizona) of radio dishes.
While you may have heard the term in pop culture, let's make sure our definitions are straight. The event horizon is the boundary between two regions of space-time, typically associated with a black hole. "Inside" the event horizon, space-time is so warped, due to the massive gravitational field of the black hole, that the escape velocity is greater than that of light. Outside, the escape velocity is quite high, but less than that of light, so matter and energy can eventually escape.
As dust and debris fall into the black hole, it accelerates. Charged particles radiate light as they accelerate, and this results in the presence of a bright disk around the event horizon.
This is precisely what we have imaged for the first time in history. A bright disk of infalling matter around the supermassive black hole at the center of M87.
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-astronomers-unveil-photo-black-hole.html
While you may have heard the term in pop culture, let's make sure our definitions are straight. The event horizon is the boundary between two regions of space-time, typically associated with a black hole. "Inside" the event horizon, space-time is so warped, due to the massive gravitational field of the black hole, that the escape velocity is greater than that of light. Outside, the escape velocity is quite high, but less than that of light, so matter and energy can eventually escape.
As dust and debris fall into the black hole, it accelerates. Charged particles radiate light as they accelerate, and this results in the presence of a bright disk around the event horizon.
This is precisely what we have imaged for the first time in history. A bright disk of infalling matter around the supermassive black hole at the center of M87.
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-astronomers-unveil-photo-black-hole.html
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