Topic: Seeing the Invisible

[Luke]

Scientist somehow used radio telescopes around the earth to get a picture of the event horizon of a black hole located 55 million light years away at the center of M87:  https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/10/world/black-hole-photo-scn/index.html

[Sethrak]

1 light year ~ let's see: Wasn't that something like 136, 000 miles pre second ~ times ~ how many seconds in a year ~ holy rolliey polly
55, 000,0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 ~ how many seconds is that ```

How do we know that's a black hole ~ yeh I've heard/read but still ```

[Luke]

Theoretically, a black hole will have an Accretion disk because of gravitational and frictional forces.  From the picture, it looks like an Accretion disk.

[Sethrak]

Oh, no ~ the speed of Light is 186,282 miles per second ~ and there are I think 86,400 seconds in a day ~ I could be wrong ~ but 186,000 X 86,400 X 365 = WOW X 55 Million ```

If this thing is that far away ~ they could tell us it's made of chocolate ~ that picture was taken of something (they say) 55 million years for the light to get here ~ it might not be there now ~ how do they know it's that far away ~ did they send a beam of light ~ and wait for the light to return and count the minutes ~ no ~ that would take twice 55 million years ```

Well, dunno ```

[Sethrak]

I think it looks like a cigarette lighter burning through a lamp shade ```

[Sethrak]

Accretion disk.

You must have studied this sort of thing ```

[WPM]

Yea, the Universe and Outer space with Stars and Constellations etc.

[Brilko]

It’s the eye of Sauron searching for that pesky little Baggins.

[Tzimis]

Theoretically, a black hole will have an Accretion disk because of gravitational and frictional forces.  From the picture, it looks like an Accretion disk.

Pretty cool. This is the first picture ever taken of a black hole.

[Asteriktos]

How to take a picture of a black hole | Katie Bouman

[Volnutt]

If only the Mayans had been right...