An international team of astronomers, which includes researchers from Tel Aviv University, has developed a unique method for mapping gas clouds near a giant black hole * Measuring the movement of matter around the giant quasar, 3C 273, which is 2.5 billion light years from Earth, allowed scientists to determine with unprecedented precision the mass of the hole the black - 300 million solar masses; The new method will allow astronomers to measure the mass of additional black holes throughout and in the depths of the universe * The results of the new study are published today in the prestigious journal Nature
Quasars are active supermassive black holes, that is, huge black holes that absorb gas from their surroundings at a dizzying rate. Now, an international group of astronomers, including astronomers from Tel Aviv University, has used a new instrument, called GRAVITY, to observe the heart of the quasar 3C273 and see, directly, the gas surrounding the black hole. The results of the revolutionary observation are published today in the prestigious journal Nature.
"More than 50 years ago, the astronomer Marten Schmidt identified an extremely bright object but very far from us, the first quasar 3C273," says Prof. Hagai Netzer from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University, who was a partner in the new observation "The energy emitted by this object exceeds tens of The energy emitted from the entire Milky Way galaxy, for all 100 billion stars in it. In fact, the energy is so great that the only way to produce it is by turning gravitational energy into heat, that is, by the flow of large amounts of gas into the interior of a giant black hole."
Quasars in particular, and supermassive black holes in general, play a central role in the history of the universe. Their growth rate is closely related to the development of most galaxies, and it affects their shape and size. So far, it has not been possible to directly map the location and speed of the gas clouds surrounding black holes, with the exception of the black hole at the center of our galaxy.
To observe the disk of gas surrounding the quasar 3C273, the international research group, led by Eckhard Sturm and Jayson Dexter from the Max Planck Institute near Munich, used a new instrument known as GRAVITY. Such measurements were not possible until now because of the tiny size of the area in which the material moves, approximately the size of the solar system, and its enormous distance from us - 2.5 billion light years. However, GRAVITY makes it possible to connect four huge telescopes, each with a diameter of 8 meters, which are located at the Southern European Observatory in Chile, into an array called an interferometer which has a separation capability equal to that of a single telescope with a diameter of 130 meters.
The angular separation obtained from the instrument is 10 microseconds of arc (the 100,000th part of a second of arc which is 1/3600 of a degree of arc). "The ability to separate like this is equivalent to the ability to measure from the Earth the diameter of a two-shekel coin placed on the moon," says Netzer.
It should be noted that measurements of a completely different type, of those gas clouds, based on rapid changes in the light intensity of quasars, have been carried out for years. According to Professor Hagi Netzer, the first measurements of 3C273 using the previous method were conducted at the Weiss Observatory at Tel Aviv University, and were published in 2000 in the doctoral thesis of Shay Caspi (now a researcher at Tel Aviv University), who worked under the guidance of Prof. Netzer.
"The new and more accurate method makes it possible to determine many properties, such as the exact size of the region, the direction of movement of the gas clouds around it and the exact mass of the black hole in the center," says Prof. Netzer. "We are actually relying here on Kepler's laws. Just as the mass of the sun is measured according to the speed of the earth's rotation around the sun and its distance from it, so we measured the mass of the black hole according to the movement of the gas clouds around it and arrived at 300 million solar masses - a result that is in good agreement with the results obtained at the Weiss Observatory.
Reingard Genzel from the Max Planck Institute, who heads the research group that built the new device, points out the ability to use GRAVITY to apply methods developed for the study of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy to black holes in other galaxies. According to Prof. Netzer, "the research group is currently working on five or six other bodies with similar properties. In the future we will ask for more observation time and I believe that after several years we will be able to generalize the result to smaller, larger and more distant black holes, i.e. older ones."
18 תגובות
Yehuda
I do not make up data. I know that "it does not seem to Judah" is a convincing argument in your opinion, but I work differently. A. Ben Ner made an argument - so I researched and found what I said. You made a whole salad out of it, distorted it, and drew wrong conclusions. What's new?
The source of what I said:
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-if-dark-matter-is-everywhere-why-havent-we-detected-it-in-our-solar-system-67ca11f94b1f
In the following source it is stated that the density of dark matter in the Milky Way region is 0.006 solar masses per cubic fraction!!!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillianscudder/2017/02/28/how-dense-is-dark-matter/#713296b062cb
I never claimed that the mass of dark matter is included in the mass of the Sun! I said that according to A. Ben Ner should have included him. What I do say is that the effect of dark matter at such ranges is completely negligible.
Yehuda - We both do not understand physics (the quotes I linked to God are from experts in the field). But, when I don't understand something then I look for an explanation from those who do and I don't make up stories and claim "Ah... I don't think so!"
Which approach seems more correct to you?
Yehuda - why do you just slander? You are not slandering me, you are slandering people with PhDs in your field who have no education in it. Why won't they be angry with you???
Yehuda
I do not make up data. I know that "it does not seem to Judah" is a convincing argument in your opinion, but I work differently. A. Ben Ner made an argument - so I researched and found what I said. You made a whole salad out of it, distorting it and drawing wrong conclusions. What's new?
The source of what I said:
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-if-dark-matter-is-everywhere-why-havent-we-detected-it-in-our-solar-system-67ca11f94b1f
In the following source it is stated that the density of dark matter in the Milky Way region is 0.006 solar masses per cubic fraction!!!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillianscudder/2017/02/28/how-dense-is-dark-matter/#713296b062cb
I never claimed that the mass of dark matter is included in the mass of the Sun! I said that according to A. Ben Ner should have included him. What I do say is that the effect of dark matter at such ranges is completely negligible.
Yehuda - We both do not understand physics (the quotes I linked to God are from experts in the field). But, when I don't understand something then I look for an explanation from those who do and I don't make up stories and claim "Ah... I don't think so!"
Which approach seems more correct to you?
Yehuda - why do you just slander? You are not slandering me, you are slandering people with PhDs in your field who have no education in it. Why won't they be angry with you???
Before I comment on the essence of the comments of my honorable predecessors, I will point out two inaccuracies:
In A Ben Ner's response, at the end of the response there should be solar masses and not light years, because it is a mass,
And in Nissim's response in the second line it is about 300 million and not as recorded (in error)
And about the responses themselves:
I agree with the problem raised by A. Ben Ner:- Where in the whole story does the role of dark matter play?? After all, it makes up about 75 percent of the matter in the universe, so what, he decided he hated black holes??
And here to this Nissim responds that in fact it is already included in the measure of the mass of the sun's mass. I haven't heard that the Sun's halo contains five times as much dark matter.
Here our friend Nissim gets excited and expresses a mistaken assertion that: "The dark matter remains more evenly distributed throughout space." Absolutely not true, the dark matter is concentrated around the spiral galaxies and mainly it is concentrated in the gas clouds around it, in short this illusory matter is put exactly... Where it is needed and how much it is needed, the main thing is not to contradict the sacred gravitation formulas of Kepler-Newton-Einstein.
And regarding the statement - "- the mass of the sun is 10 to the 17th power (!!!) greater than the mass of the dark matter volume in the sphere with a radius of one astronomical unit." I don't know where our friend got the above data from, it is known that in the end the mass of dark matter (if it exists) is ten times that of the baryonic matter in the galaxy.
And regarding Nissim's previous response to the other five evidences of the existence of dark matter, all of them have the inexplicable need, a need to grasp the altar horns of the Newton Kepler Einstein formulas even where it is proven otherwise in the measurements of the movement of the stars.
Cecilia Payne Gafushkin had to cry out bitterly in front of all the important scientists in her life and point out that the sun is made of hydrogen and a little helium and not like the best scientists of her time who preferred the good strong and hot iron as the raw material for the sun. So Mr. Nissim, whether you like it or not, scientists make mistakes, and a lot of them, and the dark and illusory matter is the biggest scientific mistake of the twentieth century. It's been eighty plus years and I want to believe that I'm not the only one who thinks so. In fact, the Nobel Prize Committee is also smart enough not to award a Nobel Prize for discovering "evidence" for this delusional substance. Although he has been at the top of scientific activity for nearly a century!
That's what it is!
Please respond gently
Yehuda
A. Ben Ner
If what you say was true - then the mass of our sun would also have to be 5 times greater. And from this it can be concluded - that the calculation of 300 solar masses is still correct...
So - what you say is probably not true. And that is indeed not true. Unlike baryonic matter that coalesces into galaxies, dark matter remains more uniformly distributed throughout space.
In the case of the Earth - the mass of the Sun is 10 to the 17th power (!!!) greater than the mass of the dark matter volume in the sphere with a radius of one astronomical unit.
Yehuda's words nevertheless raise a certain question, even though Yehuda did not mention it in his words and it is:
Where is the dark matter in the observations of 3C273?
After all, the measurements were made only based on the observation of the movement and the estimation of the amount of the radioactive (baryonic) material around the black hole, while according to the accepted estimates, the amount of dark matter that should be found there is as much as 5 more.
If the dark matter that is supposed to be there was also included in the calculation, the final calculation of the black hole's mass would give a result of about one and a half billion light years.
Yehuda
If this was the only evidence for dark matter and if dark matter contradicted something in known physics, then maybe, maybe you would be right.
But that is not the case. Here is a link to five different pieces of evidence for dark matter:
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/five-reasons-we-think-dark-matter-exists-a122bd606ba8
Dark matter is not found in the standard model, but its existence does not contradict the model, nor general relativity.
That is - you have no real reason to reject the dark matter. So why do you still rule out its existence? A good reason could be that you have an alternative theory that explains these 5 phenomena, does not contradict the laws of physics, nor does it contradict the standard model and general relativity.
I suppose there are such theories, but they are far beyond my ability to understand….
Miracles
Every spiral galaxy, which requires a lot of dark matter for its rotation, is for him "evidence that contradicts Einstein's laws". You cannot add imaginary illusory matter as much as you need, which no one has found the proof of its existence and claim that "the formulas are fine". At a distance of thousands of light years there is already a deviation from the formulas of Kepler, Newton or even Einstein,
Good night
Yehuda
Yehuda
You wrote that there is evidence that refutes Kepler Newton's laws. I assume you meant, and that the author of the article also meant - Einstein's laws.
So - there is no evidence that contradicts Einstein's laws. The reason you claim otherwise is???
Miracles
Excuse me but where the hell do you see me talking about my theory?? And where did you see that I also talk about Mordechai Milgrom's MOND theory???
Only you in your mind's eye see and dream about my theory. what happened do you have seborrheic complex??
Sorry Nissim, I didn't talk or take care of my theory! I said and I repeat that there is no assurance that the Kepler-Newton laws, which operate and are measured and found to be correct in the solar system with one solar mass, will also operate and be found to be correct in an environment of hundreds of millions of solar masses. point. That's what I said and it must be true of any theory. Increasing the measurement range of a theory in science is not done automatically, and must be done by measurements!!!
Here you continued until the end of your response to talk about... my theory which is not in the discussion of the article, and the devil knows why you did that.
It's infuriating that in the process you devalue Popper and Ockham's Razor
So answer the point and the problem raised in my first response. point.
Yehuda
Yehuda
You wrote "If you think that what is true in our solar system must also be true in systems that are millions and hundreds of millions of times larger??, what kind of unscientific, stupid, wretched attitude is that?"
But - your claim is the opposite!!! You say that your theory, which does not work in our solar system (as I have explained to you, and others have also explained to you) - does work at huge distances.
Yehuda - I gave you a link that explains that any description that changes the essence of gravity is observationally wrong - may I ask why you refuse to read it?
It's insulting that you dismiss any observation that contradicts your theory. You repeatedly pull out philosophical concepts as if they were the teachings of Sinai (Ockham's razor, Popper's principle of refutation). Philosophy is a tool, but it cannot replace observations and theoretical research.
From time to time you describe experiments. But your experiments are not meant to disprove your claims, but to confirm them. This is a very unscientific approach - and you know it!
On the other hand - your theory has no ability to explain existing observations, such as the shortening of time in a gravitational field, or as a result of speed.
On the third hand - your theory contradicts the law of conservation of energy, the Copernican principle as well as the cosmological principle.
On the fourth hand - there are many observations that disprove your theory: the CMB and the effect of gravity on individual atoms for example.
But - you are on your own. Not listening, not learning, and not thinking. You are not ready to accept criticism, and express disdain for anyone who thinks differently than you. And you don't even see it!!
for miracles
When you turn to me in an insulting and defamatory way already this morning, you only disgust me, how poor your grandson is to have such a grandfather. After all, it's in your personality, and I'm sure you spread verbal violence towards everyone around you and apparently all your lovers as well.
We had an article a few months ago that talked about determining the mourning constant. Two groups of scientists published the result of very precise measurements of the Hubble constant, the problem is that the result of the two groups does not coincide. After all, it is clear that at least one of the groups is grossly mistaken, but after all, we are talking about human beings, is it to be understood from this that "most physicists in the world are a collection of stupid charlatans"?? Of course not!
Are you allowed to attack at any moment when we disagree?
Another thing, where in my response did you see an insulting attitude?? Do you think that what is true in our solar system must also be true in larger systems millions and hundreds of millions of times??, what an unscientific, stupid, wretched attitude is this?, it is obvious that you do not understand anything about the essence of science. Science must be amenable to refutation, if it is impossible to put any statement to the test, then it is definitely an unscientific statement.
In short, you're fed up!, and it's a shame, because sometimes there were comments we discussed that were fun, educational and helpful.
I think if there is any point in responding to your (poor) comments.
Yehuda
Yehuda
You have to understand that you don't understand enough physics to claim that most physicists in the world are a bunch of dumb charlatans. You say that over and over again, and of course you don't admit that you think that way.
I explained to you in several ways that you are wrong. Don't believe me - but here is a link to an article that explains the issue in a different way. And unlike me - the author of the article probably knows what he is talking about 🙂
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.1320.pdf
I'm sorry to sound aggressive - but your attitude is simply insulting.
Yehuda
You're right. What Judah is unable to understand does not exist. From my 6-year-old grandson I expect more…
to June
There is a lot of evidence that disproves the Kepler-Newton laws, the very need to use dark and strange matter and energy every time the measurement doesn't work out for us shows that something is broken in the realm of gravitation.
Good night
Yehuda
If anything, the jet was "thrown from the black hole" and not into it as indicated under the image
They did surgery on a grape
Yehuda - so far it has been discovered that all the laws of physics also apply to stars that are far away from us... there is still no evidence that disproves the non-existence of these laws
It was said in the article that the calculation of the mass of the black hole was done according to Kepler's laws.
How confident are you that the Kepler-Newton laws, which operate and are measured and found to be correct in the solar system with one solar mass, also operate and will be found to be correct in an environment of hundreds of millions of solar masses?
It's like saying with great confidence that the force with which I move a table a meter away is exactly the same type of force with which the moon moves, at a distance three hundred million times ??
What can be said at most (while relying on the "cosmological principle") is that a solar system somewhere at the edge of the universe will act like a solar system here according to the same Kepler-Newton laws.
Please respond gently.
Good night
Yehuda