Important Innovations Collection

Circling Stars Gave It Away to Astronomers Source:  European Space Agency A Black Hole "In Our Neighborhood" European astronomers have found the closest black hole to Earth ever discovered.  It is so close that two stars circling it can be seen with the naked eye.  The black hole is called the HR 6819 triple system.  It was created by the death of a fleeting young star.  Two remaining super hot stars continue to orbit it. Trillions of Miles From Earth It is the closest black hole discovered but it is still 1,000 light years away.  Every light year equals 5.9 trillion miles.  It was discovered by astronomers using the European Space Agency's massively powerful telescope at the European Southern Observatory in northern Chile.  Lead astronomer Thomas Rivinius says the black hole "is in our neighborhood".  He adds there may be 100 million to one billion of these relatively small but hugely dense objects in the Milky Way. Black Holes...

Flashing Bright Lights from Massive Black Hole in our Galaxy Source:  NASA Sagittarius A Sagittarius A:  Black Hole Light Show The black hole Sagittarius A (Sgr A) is the Earth's closest black hole and is right in the middle of the Milky Way.  Using the Keck II Telescope in Hawaii, astronomers watched the massive black hole erupt and spew a huge burst of infrared radiation.  They call the event "unprecedented" and they can't explain exactly what caused it. Off the Charts The astronomers say the black hole reached much brighter "flux levels" than ever observed before. According to NASA, SgrA is 26,000 light years from Earth.  The astronomers observed this space phenomenon this spring and just disclosed it in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.  According to the astronomers, black holes are always variable but this one was off the charts of historic data including from the Keck II Telescope. Theories There are two theories as to what cau...

Seeing the Unseeable Source:  ETH Historic Achievement in Astrophysics An international scientific team has released the first photo of a black hole.  This is a landmark achievement in astrophysics.  And, this photo is said, by experts, to give strong support to the late physicist Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity to explain the laws of gravity. Intergalactic Mystery Masses Black holes are huge, mysterious masses at the center of every galaxy.  They're created by stars collapsing into themselves at the end of their life cycles.  The one in the photo is millions to billions times larger than the sun.  It's located 54 million light years from the earth. Inescapable Black holes are so large and their gravitational field is so intense, nothing including light can escape them.  That is why until now it has been so difficult to photograph them.  They are virtually unseeable.  Today's achievement is the result of an ...

Virtual Reality First by German & Dutch Scientists Image of Sagittarius A VR Showcases Sagittarius A For the first time, the black hole at the center of our galaxy Sagittarius A has been visualized in virtual reality.  It's innovation by German and Dutch astrophysicists.  The details were just published in the journal Computational Astrophysics and Cosmology. Immersive, 360 Visualization Scientists at Radboud University, The Netherlands and Goethe University, Germany used astrophysical models of Sagittarius A to create images.  They used the images to create a 360 degree virtual reality simulation of the black hole that can be viewed on VR consoles. Research and Educational Tools What the scientists have created is an important research opportunity to learn more about black holes and how they behave.  Their immersive visualizations, the scientists say, are just the start.  They promise much more to come.  VR is also a great educational to...