Astronomers Dissect a Supermassive Black Hole

Matt_dk sends along a piece from the European Southern Observatory, which reports on observations of the so-called "Einstein Cross," a fortuitous conjunction of a nearby galaxy and a distant black hole. A team of researchers from Europe and the US combined the effects of macrolensing (from the intervening galaxy) and microlensing (from stars in that galaxy), captured by an earth-bound telescope. "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."

rest of sentence

[uberjoe]

And were never seen again.

And yet...

[Hertne]

the article makes absolutely no mention of glaciers melting in the dead of night.

When passing the event horizon, it's expected.

[sethstorm]

At least they'd be able to say they worked closely together on the issue.

Black hole autopsy

[Coraon]

The new fox special: "Where did it come from? was this the child of the LHC? which shadowy government agency was responable for its capture? all will be reviled in Black Hole autopsy, tonight on fox!"

CSI Spinoff

[retech]

This will only lead to yet another CSI spinoff, CSI: ESO. Of course Jeff Goldblum will have to be the quirky male lead that fascinates us while still making us slightly uncomfortable.

Wow, that is some serious science.

[blue l0g1c]

If I'm understanding it right. Unfortunately I can't even come up with a car analogy to describe what I think they're doing.

Re:GOATSE

[Anonymous Coward]

For the first time, a first post linking to goatse under a science article may be considered on-topic.

Oh no :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Those freakin' scientists...MICROLENSING the black hole! And a supermassive one at that. The audacity.

In fact, I can just hear it now:

ooh baby don't you know I suffer??

For once, it's relevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

N/T

Re:Scully Using a Very Large Scapel for Dissection

[HTH NE1]

The question is where they'd get a large enough scalpel to dissect a supermassive black hole?

And yet sharp enough to dissect a singularity.

Car Analogy.

[Chris Burke]

It's sort of as if by combining a double natural 'magnifying glass' with the power of ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have scrutinized the inner parts of a car 10 billion light-years away. They were able to study the car 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 cars.

Hope that helps!

Re:Other common dumbing-down...

[Chris Burke]

How many football fields away is that?

Lots. Like, a whole fucking lot.