Kitt Peak Observatory Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory NOAO System Science Center
Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
Seeing the ‘Unseeable’: Astronomers Capture First Image of a Black Hole
Observations made with the Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes, have captured the first picture of a supermassive black hole. The black hole appears as a bright ring as it gravitationally bends the light around it into a bright ring that surrounds the black hole's dark shadow. The black hole in this portrait resides at the center of the galaxy M87, which lies at the heart of the Virgo cluster of galaxies, 55 million light years from Earth. NOAO Astronomer Tod Lauer is a member of the EHT research team, and works closely with the University of Arizona EHT group led by professors Dimitrios Psaltis and Feryal Ozel.
Read more in the Event Horizon Telescope press release.
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On April 1, the Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak emerged from hibernation and, for the first time, starlight poured through the six large lenses of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). -
How many and what kind of star clusters have been born in the history of the Magellanic Clouds? A new project, the Local Group Cluster Search, invites citizen scientists to help find out! -
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, which is being installed on the KPNO Mayall telescope, will use an array of robot fiber-positioners to automatically capture the spectra of 5000 galaxies at a time. -
A Virtual Tour of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope: this visualization, featured in the documentary Seeing the Beginning of Time, gives us a virtual peek inside the LSST enclosure. -
Astro2020 Science White Paper Coordination Hub: advertise your Decadal Survey science ideas, comment on science white paper topics, & find others with common interests. -
Citizen Science program “Backyard Worlds: Planet 9” re-launched & announced the discovery of a record-setting white dwarf star. NOAO astronomer Aaron Meisner is a co-founder & science team member. -
New Horizon’s departing view of Ultima Thule shows that the Kuiper Belt Object’s shape is actually quite odd. NOAO Astronomer Tod Lauer played a critical role in the investigation.
NOAO is the national center for ground-based nighttime astronomy in the United States and is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA). under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. If you would like information about solar astronomy, visit the National Solar Observatory. If you would like information about radio astronomy, visit the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.