There is a press conference on 10th April 2019 at 14:00 BST to announce the ground breaking results from The Event Horizon Telescope. This is rumoured to be an image of the event horizon of the super massive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, Sagiterrius A*. I have also seen suggestions that the axis of the black hole and thus the direction of the jet if it becomes active again may point in our direction.

Details of the European Press conference and links to the live stream are at https://erc.europa.eu/news/media-advisory-press-conference-first-results-event-horizon-telescope , it is also being announced at the same time in America and fivel other countries. There does not appear to be an event in the UK - I guess we are about to drop out of the little involvement we have as it is a part EU funded project .

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Engineer @ Work - Astronomer @ Play

It turns out the rumours were wrong - the image released today is of the Super Massive black hole in M87. But still 'cool' even though it is very hot !

A popular article is at http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/04/event-horizon-telescope-releases-first-ever-black-hole-image?utm_source=Yesmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=News0_ASY_190410_00000_BRKnews

and the proper paper at https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2041-8205/page/Focus_on_EHT which appears to be open access so you can read all the details.

One interesting fact in the Astronomy article is that while the Milky Way Black Hole is closer it is much smaller so presents the same angular size to the telescope. The Sagiterrius A* black hole is a more challenging observation as the material orbits the event horizon in a few minutes ! I guess that make combining the observations a whole lot more complicated due to the temporal variability.

John

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Engineer @ Work - Astronomer @ Play

The BBC are broadcasting a special programme tonight on BBC4 at 21:00 BST covering the discovery. Details at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00042l4. It should be available on iplayer (for those in the UK) for a few weeks after it is broadcast.

John

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Engineer @ Work - Astronomer @ Play