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Why did they choose this very distant galaxy? why not something that's close to us like the andromeda galaxy or even the center of our own galaxy?
by dugluak 8y ago
Why did they choose this very distant galaxy? why not something that's close to us like the andromeda galaxy or even the center of our own galaxy?
- t3hz0r 8y agoAs I understand it, by being more massive this black hole has roughly the same angular size in the sky as Sag A* at the center of our galaxy, but none of the dusty foreground in the way so we get a clearer vantage point.
- bbrks 8y agoThey did. M87* was the widely publicised "first" photo, but they also got images of Sagittarius A* (the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy). The difficulties with Sgr A* are twofold: - The black hole moves too much during an observation (because it's much closer, and parallax is a thing) - Sgr A* is much smaller than M87* by mass, so even though it's much closer, the angular diameter is almost the same, and the accretion disk is dimmer.