• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > China

Telescopes Around Globe 'Map' a Black Hole

  • Image of a black hole.

    Image of a black hole. | Photo: Xinhua

Published 16 April 2021
Opinion

Scientists from 32 countries provided data on a black hole located about 55 million light-years from Earth.

Nineteen telescopes and telescope arrays around the globe have mapped the electromagnetic spectrum of a supermassive black hole, 6.5 billion times as massive as the sun, at the center of the M87 galaxy about 55 million light-years from Earth.

RELATED:

China's Fast Telescope Expected To Bolster Global Astronomical Research

The data was released on Wednesday in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. A total of 760 astronomers from scientific institutes in 32 countries and regions contributed to the data.

The data can be combined with that produced by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which captured the first image of a black hole, to allow astronomers to tackle some of the most challenging questions in astrophysics.

The observation facilities comprise telescopes in space, such as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, as well as ground-based telescopes such as China's Tianma Telescope and Chile's ALMA - an array of 66 telescopes that make it the largest of its kind in the world.

Together, they have produced the most comprehensive data around the black hole's wavelengths so far. The spectrum covers a wide range of wavelengths.

Tianma, as large as eight basketball courts with a diameter of 65 meters and height of 70 meters, ranks No. 1 in Asia and No. 3 in the world among the same kind of telescopes for its overall performance.

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.