Astronomers with the Horizon Events Telescope have developed a new way of observing the sky from the radio to multiple frequencies, and it means that we can soon capture supermassive color images Black holes.
The color is something interesting. In physics, we can say that the color of light is defined by its frequency or wavelength. The longer the wavelength, or the lower the frequency, the more towards the red end of the spectrum it is. Move towards the blue end, and the wavelengths are shortened and the highest frequencies. Each frequency or wavelength has its own unique color.
Of course, we don’t see it that way. Our eyes see color with three different types of cones in our retina, sensitive to the frequencies of red, green and blue light. Our minds then use this data to create a color image. Digital cameras work similarly. They have sensors that capture red, green and blue light. The screen of your computer then uses red, green and blue pixels, which deceives our brain to see a color image.
While we can’t see Radio Light, radio telescopes can see colors, known as bands. A detector can capture a narrow frequency range, known as frequency band, which is similar to the way in which optical detectors capture colors. When observing the radio sky in different frequency bands, astronomers can create an “color” image.
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But this is not exempt from problems. Most radio telescopes can only observe one band at a time. Therefore, astronomers have to observe an object several times in different bands to create a color image. For many objects, this is perfectly fine, but for objects or objects of rapid change with a small apparent size, it does not work. The image can change so fast that you cannot train images together. Imagine if the camera of your phone will take a tenth of a second to capture each color of an image. It would be fine for a landscape photo or selfie, but for an action action, the different images would not be aligned.
This is where this new method enters. The equipment used a method known as frequency phase transfer (FPT) to overcome atmospheric distortions of radio light. When observing the radio sky in the 3 mm wavelength, the equipment can track how the atmosphere distorts the light. This is similar to the way in which optical telescopes Use a laser to track atmospheric changes. The team showed how the sky can observe in a wavelength of 3 mm and 1 mm at the same time and use it to correct and sharpen the image collected by the wavelength of 1 mm. When correcting atmospheric distortion in this way, astronomers could capture successive images in different radio bands, then correct them all to create a high -resolution color image.
This method is still in its early stages, and this last study is just a demonstration of the technique. But show that the method can work. Therefore, future EHT (NGEHT) projects and Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) can build on this method. And that means we can see black and color black holes.
He original version This article was published in Universe today.
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