At the centre of our own galaxy there is a black hole, called Sagittarius A*. In anticipation of the first actual photograph of a black hole, an international project that also involves astronomers of Radboud University, Jordy Davelaar and colleagues have built a virtual reality (VR) simulation of the phenomenon. The VR simulation was published in the journal Computation Astrophysics and Cosmology on November 19th.
The EHT is closer than ever to its goal, as the project continues to increase its resolving power and sensitivity as more telescopes join the system. Another important aspect of this project exists, however: the ability to analyze and characterize the images it produces in a meaningful way. Recently, a team of scientists led by Lia Medeiros (University of Arizona, University of California Santa Barbara) has demonstrated that a novel approach — principal component analysis — may be a useful tool in this process. Learn more about it in... Read more about Planning for images of a black hole: New image analysis tools presented in an article in AAS Nova
Results based on data obtained with the 4-station Event Horizon Telescope back in 2013 were published in a peer-reviewed journal, showing tantalizing, but not yet conclusive, structure in Sgr A* on the scale of about 3 Schwarzschild radii of the black hole. This was the first time that the APEX telescope joined the EHT array as the first mm-wave Very Long Baseline Array (VLBI) station in the southern hemisphere. Read more about the new findings in this press release...