The last breath of Thomas Edison? This sealed test tube, on display at the Henry Ford Museum, contai

← The coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, last Emperor of Russia, May, 1896. This footage is apparently on Believe it or not, this is a picture of a black hole. Specifically, it is a quasar (HE 1104-1805), a supermassive black hole surrounded by an accretion disc of matter. Quasars are very, very far away and are therefore very difficult to observe directly. Scientists used a conveniently placed galaxy sitting in between Earth and the quasar to exploit the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. In this way, they were able to see the accretion disk, measure its diameter and record the disc’s temperature at various points. The disc was between four and eleven light-days across. To quote the press release: “These observations show a level of precision equivalent to spotting individual grains of sand on the surface of the Moon.” →

Null Entropy

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