M87’s glittering black heart
Astronomers have tracked a black hole shimmering for over a decade
Out of alignment
The Solar System could be aligned along more than just the ecliptic (the plane that the planets orbit in). A recent look at the orbits of long period comets revealed that many of them appear to line up along a newly discovered ‘empty ecliptic’, which is offset by around 120˚.
Nobel prize for black holes
The 2020 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to three scientists investigating black holes. The award will be shared between mathematician Roger Penrose for his theoretical work on how they form, and astronomers Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel for their discovery of the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way.
China’s reusable spaceplane
China successfully launched a prototype reusable spacecraft on 4 September. It remained in low-Earth orbit for two days before landing back on Earth. However, images or details about the spacecraft have not been officially released, leading many to question its potential purpose.
hole at the heart of galaxy M87 appears to be glittering. The galaxy first made headlines in 2019 when a network of telescopes
The black
known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) imaged the shadow of its central black hole. Armed with the EHT image to guide them, astronomers have gone back over the data taken by prototype networks that preceded the EHT to extract earlier images of the black hole. In doing so, they created a timeline of its appearance over the last decade. The analysis showed that while the ring stays the same size, its brightest point dances around the edge, giving it a shimmering appearance.
“Studying the region will be crucial for a better understanding of how black holes accrete matter and launch relativistic jets,” says Thomas Krichbaum from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. eventhorizontelescope.org