![]() ![]() We concluded that these properties were extremely low - we called it a “black hole on a starvation diet”. A few months earlier we had investigated the accretion rate and luminosity of Sgr A*, i.e., how much matter was falling towards the black hole and how much energy was dissipated into radiation. Surprisingly, there was no clear understanding of what the nature of the radio and sub mm-emission of Sgr A* were. Modeling Sgr A* - if you know one black hole, you know them all So, when new observations of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) - the hypothesized supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy - came about in the 1990’s, it seemed clear that something exciting was in the air and as new observational opportunities abounded, the hunt for the supermassive black hole in our galaxy was on! The image has a width of 775 light years. Sgr A* is the point in the bright central splotch. Radio image of the galactic center region made with the MeerKat Telescope Array in South Africa at 1.3 GHz. Everybody was talking about black holes, but they were still seen as exotic and unproven - ruling paradigm, but not a physical reality (yet). When I started with my Ph.D., I witnessed an ambiguous situation. Was it a force at all? How would it relate to quantum physics? One of the most mysterious objects that encapsulated all these questions seemed to be black holes. ![]() The ability to make an impact was getting more difficult and the next big thing was perhaps decades away.īut there was still one major, unsolved question: What is the true nature of gravity? After all, it was the last force resisting assimilation into the Standard Model of physics. However, it was also clear that particle physics was getting too big. Particle physics was at its peak and I was impressed by the large collaborations and the success of the Standard Model in ruling our world view. Here, I try to tell the story from my personal perspective and mention a few of the lessons I learned along the way.Īs a student, I was drawn into physics by the fundamental questions about space, time, and matter that it addressed. Witnessing how such a process unfolds from the beginning was an interesting experience for me. It is the result of a long scientific but also sociological process: the pioneering work of a few and the collective effort of many, understanding the basic physics, long term visions, sudden revelations, technological game changers, continuously growing incremental insights, and in the end, also some luck. The scientists said the shape of the shadow would be almost a perfect circle in Einstein's theory of general relativity and, if it turns out that it is not, there is something wrong with the theory.Imaging a black hole does not just happen. This is known as the black hole's shadow or silhouette. The scientists will be looking for a ring of light - disrupted matter and radiation circling at tremendous speed at the edge of the event horizon - around a region of darkness representing the actual black hole. The fact that black holes do not allow light to escape makes viewing them difficult. ![]() The new observations are expected to provide clues about M87's magnetic field, which may be linked to the jet mechanism. The EHT's other target, the galaxy Messier 87, also known as M87, is notable for shooting out a fast jet of charged subatomic particles that stretches for some 5,000 light years. New West End Company BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENT. ![]()
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