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Event Horizon Telescope


Black holes have always been a mystery to many. Many scientists have dedicated their lives for the study of black holes. Although till date, we still don’t have an actual picture of a Black hole; scientists are trying to get a closer look at it. And with advancements in the field of technology, soon we’ll be able to see an actual picture of a black hole. How is it possible? Let’s see.

Event Horizon Telescope is a project which has been started to study the event horizon of the black hole -Sagittarius A* which is situated in our galaxy. It will capture the pictures of the event horizon and send it back to Earth.  Before going into detail of this project, first let’s see what an Event Horizon is.

Event Horizon:

Event horizon is a boundary in space-time, beyond which the events cannot affect the outside observer. Simply put, it is the boundary of no returns. It is the boundary of the black hole, beyond which events are not affected by the space time and once in this boundary, there’s no going back.  Event Horizon Telescope will observe this boundary to help us study the nature of black holes.

Event Horizon Telescope:

As the name suggests, there’s a telescope which will observe the event horizon. It is the biggest “virtual” telescope on Earth. But mind you, it’s not an ordinary telescope. It consists of an array of telescopes which are situated worldwide.  These are radio telescopes, connected over global network and they combine data from Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI).  VLBI is a type of astronomical interferometry. A signal such as quasar is combined from all the radio telescopes. The distance between the telescopes is calculated by calculating the time difference between which the signals occurred.

Since 2006, EHT has gathered more and more concrete information very year.  The first image of Sagittarius A* was supposed to be formed in April 2017. But due to certain issues of the telescopes situated in the South Pole, it couldn’t happen.  But soon we will be able to prove this. The data is in and scientists are working on it. Astronomers predict that we’ll soon be able to see the first image in 2018.

Hope this year will be the year in which we can prove the existence of Einstein’s interstellar monsters. If it happens, it is going to be a giant leap in the study of black holes. We’ll not learn about the Sagittarius A*  but also about Messier 87, which is even larger black hole.

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