Event Horizon Telescope

High school (ages 12+)
Space & Astronomy

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/event-horizon-telescope

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. How long is Event Horizon Telescope?Observations are conducted at millimeter wavelengths, notably 1.3 mm and 870 μm
2. What is the observational method?Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) synchronizes a global network of radio telescopes
3. What is the primary targets?The supermassive black holes Messier 87 (M87) and Sagittarius A (Sgr A)
4. How does the Event Horizon Telescope make pictures of black holes?It uses Very Long Baseline Interferometry, syncing many telescopes so their combined size is the diameter of Earth, giving extremely sharp detail.
5. Why was the first black hole image taken in 2019?The team focused on the big black hole in galaxy Messier 87, which appears the largest from Earth, and they captured a bright ring around a dark center.

Event Horizon Telescope (EHT): An international collaboration using VLBI to image black hole event horizons.
Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI): A technique combining signals from widely separated telescopes to achieve high angular resolution.
Angular Resolution: The smallest angular separation between two objects that a telescope can distinguish, measured in microarcseconds for the EHT.
Accretion Disk: A structure formed by diffuse material in orbital motion around a massive central body, such as a black hole.