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by _void 2619 days ago
I don't get the whole "oh it's too blurry and nothing is visible" comments. It's a black hole, what did you expect to see? Interstellar CGI?
2 comments
KnightOfWords 2619 days ago
Yes, we're using a telescope the size of the Earth to look at an object the size of our solar system in a galaxy about 55 million light years away. It's an infinitesimally small patch of sky.

On the other hand, the jet from the M87 black hole is quite large and we have good images of it. It's even resolvable by amateurs, I hope to take a picture of it over Easter with a small telescope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_87#Jet

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O_H_E 2619 days ago
> 55 million light years

didn't he correct himself and said kilometers

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petschge 2619 days ago
55 million light years is about correct. Wikipedia still has 53.5 ± 1.63 Mly from older observations, but appendix I in paper https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab1141 has a bit more on the distance measurements they used. They arrive at 16.76 ± 0.75 Mpc, which translates into 54.7 ± 2.4 Mly.
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MR4D 2619 days ago
He corrected himself to say 500 billion billion kilometers after mistakingly saying light years.

I haven't done the math, but I believe that roughly equates to 55 million light years.

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O_H_E 2619 days ago
Yup, My bad.
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crimsonalucard 2619 days ago
It is a letdown. Although I wasn't expecting Jupiter level detail this pic doesn't blow me away because it's just a blurry ring. Jupiter level detail will blow me away.
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C4stor 2619 days ago
The significance of the image is not in its quality, but in its mere existence.

It's enough to confirm various predictions, and should give a new baseline for truth about black holes.

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lanewinfield 2619 days ago
Consider yourself lucky that a black hole isn't Jupiter level distance from us.
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crimsonalucard 2619 days ago
At a jupiter level distance we'd be well within the event horizon. At that distance I expect to see four dimensional book cases and my daughter.
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HenryBemis 2619 days ago
Jupiter level quality would mean that we are so close that we would be instantly torn apart.
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crimsonalucard 2619 days ago
Jupiter level quality is what I want. Not jupiter level distance.
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