Recent News
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Credit: Pablo Torne (IRAM), Jonathan Weintroub (SMA), William Montgomerie (EAO/JCMT)
Astronomers take the first step towards multi-color black hole observations with the Event Horizon Telescope
PAPER PUBLICATION
MARCH 26, 2025 - CAMBRIDGE, MA.
An international team of astronomers has successfully demonstrated a new technique to observe especially faint black holes by correcting for atmospheric effects on Earth. The technique, called “frequency phase transfer (FPT),” can now be implemented at observatories participating in the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), making the global array more sensitive than ever before.
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By linking together three EHT telescopes – the IRAM 30-meter telescope atop Pico Veleta, Spain and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and Submillimeter Array on Maunakea, Hawai’i – the astronomers showed that measurements of the atmosphere at a wavelength of 3mm could be used to enhance data taken at a wavelength of 1mm. The results, led by Sara Issaoun and Dom Pesce of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, were published in The Astronomical Journal.
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Read the paper, First Frequency Phase Transfer from the 3 mm to the 1 mm Band on an Earth-sized Baseline, here. Read the press release here.
Credit: EHT, D. Pesce, A. Chael
Event Horizon Telescope Makes Highest-Resolution Black Hole Detections from Earth
PAPER PUBLICATION
AUGUST 27, 2024 - CAMBRIDGE, MA.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has conducted test observations achieving the highest resolution ever obtained from the surface of the Earth, by detecting light from the centers of distant galaxies at a frequency of around 345 GHz.
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When combined with existing images of supermassive black holes at the hearts of M87 and Sgr A at the lower frequency of 230 GHz, these new results will not only make black hole photographs 50% crisper but also produce multi-color views of the region immediately outside the boundary of these cosmic beasts.
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The new detections, led by scientists from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) which includes the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), were published in The Astronomical Journal.
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Read the paper, First Very Long Baseline Interferometry Detections at 870 µm, here. Read the press release here.
Credit: EHT collaboration
Astronomers Reveal First Image of the Black Hole at the Heart of Our Galaxy
COLLABORATION RESULT
MAY 12, 2022 - INTERNATIONAL.
​The EHT collaboration has unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The result provides overwhelming evidence that the object at the heart of our galaxy is indeed a black hole and yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants, which are thought to reside at the center of most galaxies.
The image, described in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, is a long-anticipated look at the massive object that sits at the very center of the Milky Way. Scientists had previously seen stars orbiting around something invisible, compact and very massive in our galaxy’s core. This strongly suggested that the object — known as Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* — was a black hole; the image provides the first direct visual evidence of it.
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The effort was made possible through the ingenuity of more than 300 researchers from 80 institutes around the world that together make up the EHT Collaboration. In addition to developing complex tools to overcome the challenges of imaging Sgr A*, the team worked rigorously for five years, using supercomputers to combine and analyze their data, all while compiling an unprecedented library of simulated black holes to compare with the observations.
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Read a selected list of publications associated with this historic result here.