Sunday, February 20, 2011

Twisted Light Could Enable Black Hole Detection: Scientific American

Rotating black holes should put a spin on the light passing by them, potentially allowing astronomers a new way to gauge their properties

"Despite the fact that astronomers cannot peer at what goes on inside the event horizon, a black hole's gravitational effects on its neighborhood allow for a number of indirect observations. Swirls of infalling gas heat up and give off radiation to illuminate a black hole's vicinity, and the orbits of stars around a black hole allow astronomers to estimate its mass. Now researchers have proposed a new optical technique to observe and study black holes by measuring the imprint they should leave on the light that passes near an event horizon."

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