Now that we’ve seen the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, we can now listen to it
The big astronomy story of last week was the release of a photo of Sagitarrius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. It’s a big bugger, estimated to have a mass of four million times of our sun.
Black holes have always captured our imagination ever since their existence was postulated many decades ago. A thing with gravity so strong that even light can’t escape? Something with infinite density? A possible tunnel to an alternative universe? Cool.
The same boffins who figured out to image Sagittarius A* also found a way to “listen” to it. Using a technique called “sonification” (which basically shifts certain electromagnetic frequencies into those we can hear), we can now hear what our black hole has to say. Double friggin’ cool. (Via Sean)
By the way, Arcade Fire helped present the unveiling of the first-ever Sagittarius A* photo. (Via Oreo)
