Supermassive Black Hole Dissected With Natural Magnifying Glasses: 1,000 Times Clearer Than Best Telescopes Can Do
Friday, December 12, 2008 - 13:28
in Astronomy & Space
Combining a double natural "magnifying glass" with the power of ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have scrutinized the inner parts of the disc around a supermassive black hole 10 billion light-years away. They were able to study the disc with a level of detail a thousand times better than that of the best telescopes in the world, providing the first observational confirmation of the prevalent theoretical models of such discs.