Eye Of Sauron's Black Hole Provides A Better Way To Measure Cosmic Distances
By looking into the ‘Eye of Sauron,’ astronomers have developed a high-resolution way of determining cosmic distance from Earth, according to a new study published in the journal Nature.
The study researchers were able to develop their method by examining the spiral galaxy known as NGC 4151, dubbed the ‘Eye of Sauron’ due to its resemblance to the iconic character in the Lord of the Rings. The supermassive black hole at the center of this galaxy draws in nearby gas, and it was this activity that allowed astronomers to measure the distance to the galaxy.
“When the gas falls in towards the black hole, it is heated up and emits ultraviolet radiation,” explained Darach Watson, an associate professor of cosmology at the University of Copenhagen. “The ultraviolet radiation heats a ring of dust, which orbits the black hole at a large distance and this heats the dust causing it to emit infrared radiation.”
Image Above Credit: Marie Dyekjær Eriksen
“Using telescopes on Earth, we can now measure the time delay between the ultraviolet light from the black hole and the subsequent infrared radiation emitted from the dust cloud,” Watson continued. “The time difference is about 30 days and because we know the speed of light, we can calculate the real physical distance between the black hole and the encircling dust.”
To examine the black hole, researchers used the two 10-meter Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Using a technique called interferometry, the researchers were able to achieve a resolution 100 times better than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. The technique also provided a wealth of all-important angular data.
The researchers were able to determine NGC 4151’s distance to Earth by combining the angular data with the galaxy’s size of 30 light days and simple geometry.
“We calculated the distance to be 62 million light-years,” Watson said. “The previous calculations based on redshift (a change in the wavelength of the light due to the velocity of the object away from us) were between 13 million and 95 million light-years, so we have gone from a great deal of uncertainty to now being able to determine the precise distance.”
Study co-author Sebastian Hönig, currently at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, noted that the results could translate to other galaxies.
“(I)f the current result for NGC 4151 holds for other objects, it can potentially beat any other current methods to reach the same precision to determine distances for remote galaxies directly based on simple geometrical principles,” he added in a separate statement. “Moreover, it can be readily used on many more sources than the current most precise method.”
“Such distances are key in pinning down the cosmological parameters that characterize our universe or for accurately measuring black hole masses,” Hönig added. “Indeed, NGC 4151 is a crucial anchor to calibrate various techniques to estimate black hole masses. Our new distance implies that these masses may have been systematically underestimated by 40 per cent.”
The researchers said they are currently investigation other galaxies with the hope of establishing precise distances to within a few percent.
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Whistler Blowers, Insiders
“… we know the speed of light …” Do you really know the speed of light that far in the space? That is nonsense! Better to speak only about the speed of light in our own solar system at best. The rest is a product of a wild imagination. It is a known and measured fact that great masses as the mass of our Sun, slow down the speed of light, causing its path to curve. So, the mass of a black hole may slow down the speed of the light to zero, because the light cannot come out of it, and close to the black hole, the speed of light may be only a very small fraction of the speed of light measured on the Earth and close to it. In addition, there may be numerous masses of dark matter on the path of the light, slowing it down more. The result may be exact in the calculations but it is wrong.
The nature of the people that want to show that they are wise, including the modern scientists, has never changed in the course of the millennia. If they really don’t know the answer, they fabricate it, helped by many complicated calculations and drawings. The most important thing for them is to keep up their praised reputation and advantages. The truth is on the sidelines but not as a coach.