The team behind the international Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project is on the verge of a revolution in astronomy. They have found a way to see the most mysterious objects in the universe — black holes — in color. This previously impossible achievement promises to reveal incredible details about their behavior.
Although black holes are invisible, matter that falls into them is heated to incredible temperatures and emits radio waves. Until then, radio telescopes could only see in one frequency, a kind of “shade of gray.” This method is good for static objects, but completely unsuitable for studying dynamic phenomena around black holes, such as rapidly rotating accretion disks or powerful relativistic jets. The object was moving so fast that it was impossible to take a clear “photo.”
The breakthrough lies in the frequency-phase shift technique. It allows telescopes to observe simultaneously in multiple radio bands and correct atmospheric distortions (“blurring”) for each of them in real time. Simply put, scientists have taught radio telescopes to see in color by combining data from different frequencies into a full-color image.
“It’s like giving our telescopes a new sense,” explains Dr. Sara Issaoun of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, lead author of the study published in The Astronomical Journal. This technology will enable the creation of not just static images, but dynamic “films” of processes occurring at the event horizon.
This method is already being prepared for use in the new generation of observatories. The famous EHT, which first showed us the black hole M87* in 2019 and Sagittarius A* in the center of the Milky Way in 2022, will gain new capabilities.
The new technology may also help resolve contemporary scientific disputes. For example, some researchers doubt that the accretion disk of the black hole Sgr A* is a perfect ring, suggesting that it has an elongated shape. Future color observations will provide a clear answer.
Earlier, we reported on how the image of the black hole Sagittarius A* turned out to be erroneous.
According to gizmodo.com
