Funky glasses to see black holes up close

View black holes directly and you won’t see a thing worth seeing. That’s why astronomers have equipped themselves with funky glasses that let them see through disks of particles around black holes. Published in Nature are the what nots of these special spectacles. Astronomers used Science and Technology Facility Council’s UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii and put a polarizing filter on them to see through the dust that usually obscures view of supermassive black holes. Makoto Kishimoto of the Max Planck Institut fuer Radioastronomie, led the team that accomplished this feat in Hawaii. This dust gives out unpolarized light only and thus obstructs the view of polarized light that comes from the vicinity of the black holes. The polarized filter lets only the latter to pass through and reveals vision of disks that surround these astronomical wonders. Being so far from us, these black holes have been especially difficult to study. The clouds of gas and dust have also made matters more difficult. Now with an uncontaminated view at hand maybe scientists would reveal some mysteries that surround these structures.

pr irpol 2008 eYqxp 3858

Via