At the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy lies a super-massive black hole. We know it's there, we can detect its effects on the galaxy and see nearby stars whipping around it at high speed. Last year, a worldwide collaboration of astronomers decided to try to take the first direct image of the black hole, merging telescopes spread across the planet into the equivalent of one giant radio dish. Did they succeed? We're still waiting on that image ...
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Syzygy is produced by Dr Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
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Things we talk about in this episode:
SYZYGY LIVE! Podcast recording at YorNight 2018 https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/yornight/2018/
Fermi’s new constellations for the high-energy sky: https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/yornight/2018/
Imaging the SMBH at the centre of the Milky Way: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/magazine/how-do-you-take-a-picture-of-a-black-hole-with-a-telescope-as-big-as-the-earth.html
Event Horizon Telescope: https://eventhorizontelescope.org
Emily’s Astrocampus at the Uni of York : https://eventhorizontelescope.org
Sagittarius A*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*
Star S2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2_(star)
A truck-full of data: https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/
The Black Hole (movie): https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1002497_black_hole
Interstellar (movie): https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/interstellar_2014
The physics of the Interstellar black hole: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/
Gravitational lensing: https://www.spacetelescope.org/science/gravitational_lensing/
Pale Blue Dot: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/536/pale-blue-dot/
Carl Sagan on the Pale Blue Dot image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g