Bruce wrote a letter to his partner on the other side of the country. He was worried that other radio astronomy was close to their heels, including one by the name of Fred Lo.
If we want to beat him into print, we need to publish fast.
Three years after receiving his doctorate degree from Cornell University, Balick was eager to let the world know what he had found in the sky on a clear, dry February day. Competition could also come from the side. There were radio waves from objects in deep space. Astronomers were studying the sky at the same wavelength.
The credit for Sagittarius A*, pronounced "Sagittarius A-star", was given to the two winners. In December 1974 they published their discovery in the Astrophysical Journal.
It was very exciting. They peered into deep space and found the soul of the galaxy. He was not aware that he would be staring at its face 50 years later. The first-ever photo of Sagittarius A* to the world was released by the international event horizon telescope group on May 12, 2022, a dark spot with a fuzzy ring of red-orange light.
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There are black holes in outer space. A star larger than the sun is thought to be the cause of a stellar black hole. The material of the star collapses onto itself.
The form of supermassive black holes, millions to billions of times more massive than the sun, is more mysterious than stellar black holes. Many people believe that these giants are at the center of the universe. Recent Hubble Space Telescope observations have supported the theory that supermassive black holes start in the dusty cores of starburst galaxies, where new stars are rapidly churned out.
"We love our black hole."
Black holes are not like planets. The event horizon is a point of no return. Anything that comes too close will fall into the hole.
The image of Sagittarius A, or Sgr A*, is a masterful achievement, the second time scientists have overcome the barrier of invisibility to glimpse a black hole. Scientists say it shows that black holes are real.
300 scientists were involved in the feat at 80 institutions. Light cannot escape black holes. Sgr A* appeared in the form of a black shadow surrounded by gas and dust.
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The snapshot was the first time most people had seen the black hole. Sgr A* is a deep space enigma that radio astronomy has tried to wrap their brains around for decades.
Feryalzel, a professor of astronomy and physics from the University of Arizona, helped release a new photo at a news conference in Washington, D.C.
The teams were neck and neck in detecting the black hole, but for different reasons. They were vying for time on the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Green Bank interferometry system in the West Virginia mountains, which linked three radio dishes and an antenna 20 miles away to mimic a larger telescope. The expansion of the antenna in Huntersville, W.V. was a giant leap forward in technology.
Dennis Downes and W. Miller submitted a proposal to look for the remnants of a quasar or supernova in Sagittarius A, an area in the constellation Sagittarius. Due to work and travel conflicts, Downes and Goss never made the journey from Europe to West Virginia in the fall of 1973.
They were looking for a star-formation region near the center of the universe. There was a cloud of gas and dust near the center, but no bright stars.
The entrance to the Green Bank, West Virginia radio astronomy site in the early 1960s. Credit: NRAO / AUI/NSF
We thought we would point the antennas at the real center of the universe, Sagittarius A, according to the man.
He told the Green Bank site director about the signal. The research team of Goss and Downes wanted to pursue a configuration and radio wavelength that the other team used. According to recollections published many years later, Hogg asked the two teams to wait while he tried to communicate with the other team. Maybe they could work together and get some credit in the paper.
"Just for the hell of it, we thought we would point the antennas at the real galactic center, Sagittarius A."
The two men worked 2,800 miles apart, corresponding by mail, to complete the calibration of the data and develop explanations for their findings for the next three months.
The man who discovered the black hole said he didn't hold a grudge against his colleagues. It was exciting to know that Sgr A* existed, and that's what Goss knew early on.
He said that they might have done it, but they were ahead of them.
W. Miller Goss, right, who lives in New Mexico today and is retired, said he never held a grudge against his colleagues for discovering the supermassive black hole. Credit: Woodruff T. Sullivan III collection / NRAO / AUI/NSF
The idea of black holes as a mathematical solution to a physics problem was accepted for a long time. Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted their existence about 60 years earlier.
In 1974, the year of the discovery of the black holes, British astronomer Sir Martin Rees proposed that they could live at the center of some galaxies.
Michael Johnson, from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said at the event that everyone assumed that they just evaporate. Black holes are just science fiction, there is something else there.
50 years before the photographic proof, the question was posed to Brown and Balick, what were they going to publish? How far could they go?
The scientists came close to calling Sagittarius A* a black hole because of how controversial they were.
The paper does not refer to the term. The black hole is a physical structure that defines the center of the universe.
An antenna added to the Green Bank Interferometer in 1973 was a giant leap forward in technology, enhancing image resolution tenfold. Credit: NRAO / AUI/NSF
If this turned out to be a black hole, my career would tank. There was a political decision being made, not a scientific one.
He was not willing to risk his career on such a claim.
He said he was trying to make sure he passed the laugh test.
After eight years, Brown came up with the name Sagittarius A* for the black hole. The compact radio source was distinguished from other elements of the center by using the asterisk. He thought about his thesis while he was on the yellow notepad. Scientists indicate high energy states with the symbol. He thought using the star would convey the small, bright radio source.
The name stuck.
"I was trying to make sure I passed the laugh test."
While Brown and Goss continued their research on the center, Balick's interests took him somewhere else. He developed an expertise in planetary nebulas, the clouds of gas and dust that come from dying stars.
Some of the scientists who studied Sagittarius A are no longer around. They have died.
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The retired University of Washington professor did not get a peek of the photograph of his discovery. Instead, the elderly man waited for the event horizon telescope to announce that he would meet his friend, just before going to visit his grandsons. He was like an ordinary member of the public.
The mug that Sgr A*'s was holding was a dead ringer for the first black hole photo released in 2019. The black hole at the center of the galaxy was much larger.
He said that general relativity would need a major change if it looked different.
He wanted Brown to see it.
Robert L. Brown, a radio astronomer, was one of two scientists who discovered Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF
He said that the attention for Sgr A* brought back memories for him, but there were no feelings of jealousy.
The community of scientists had to work hard to get to this point. Donald Lynden-Bell is an "unseen hero" because he brought about a theoretical understanding of compact radio sources at the centers of galaxies, quasars, and black holes. The Green Bank radio telescope array was built by a dozen or so electrical and mechanical engineers.
He said it was an incredible achievement for many, many people.
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