Event Horizon Telescope - Blog Posts
New Zealand was lovely, but I already touched on what I’d be tempted to talk about with my Southern Stars episode. A person I interviewed as a potential new housemate gave me the idea for this episode because the joy of outer space is truly everywhere and anywhere. The field of astrogeology was not something I had heard of before, though I had indirectly heard of Eugene Shoemaker. I knew the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was named after him (and Carolyn Shoemaker, his wife). It turns out he basically founded the modern field of astrogeology! So I talk about him for quite a while, too.
Below the cut are the glossary, transcript, sources, and music credits. Send me any topic suggestions via Tumblr message (you don’t need an account to do this, just submit as anonymous). You can also tweet at me on Twitter at @HDandtheVoid, or you can ask me to my face if you know me in real life. Subscribe on iTunes to get the new episodes of my semi-monthly podcast, and please please please rate and review it. Go ahead and tell friends if you think they’d like to hear it, too!
(The next episode is definitely going to be on famous comets, and I’m hoping to publish that episode in May.)
Glossary
active galaxy - a galaxy with a small core of emission embedded at the center. This core is typically very variable and very bright compared to the rest of the galaxy. These galaxies emit much more energy than they should; this excess energy is found in the infrared, radio, UV, and X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
black hole - a region of spacetime where a great deal of mass and energy have been compressed into a relatively small space. Black holes exert such strong gravitational effects that no mass or energy, not even light, can escape from inside them. There are supermassive black holes in galaxies that contribute to the development and life cycle of galaxies.
blazar - a subcategory of active galaxy, it is an extremely bright, distant object, powered by a black hole, which emits massive amounts of energy. It is distinct from a quasar because it is even brighter.
interferometry - a group of techniques to extract information from superimposing electromagnetic waves to create interference. In radio astronomy, this is done by using a wide spread of receivers to look at the same distant object, then bringing that data together with a correlator that can create a larger, clearer picture than an individual radio telescope alone could.
Messier object - a deep-sky object included on a list of 103-110 deep-sky objects made by Charles Messier and his colleagues in the 18th century in an attempt to prevent fuzzy, bright objects from being confused with comets.
torus - a donut shape.
quasar - a distant, massive celestial object that emits extremely large amounts of energy. These star-like objects may reflect a stage in the evolution of some galaxies.
Script/Transcript
Sources
Black Holes, explained via National Geographic
What Is a Black Hole? via NASA
Black Holes via NASA
Black Hole via Swinburne University of Technology
Darkness Visible, Finally: Astronomers Capture First Ever Image of a Black Hole via the New York Times (April 2019)
Event Horizon Telescope
Astronomers Capture First Image of a Black Hole via ESO (April 2019)
How They Took the First Picture of a Black Hole via New York Times (April 2019)
Intro Music: ‘Better Times Will Come’ by No Luck Club off their album Prosperity
Filler Music: ‘Flame On Flame (A Slow Dirge)’ by Kishi Bashi off his album Sonderlust
Outro Music: ‘Fields of Russia’ by Mutefish off their album On Draught