Event Horizon telescope - Wikipedia Event Horizon telescope Event Horizon Telescope Telescope style project radio interferometer Website www.eventhorizontelescope.org ( edit on Wikidata ) Soft X-ray image of Sgr A * ( center ) and two light echoes from a recent explosion ( circled ) The Event Horizon Telescope ( EHT ) is a project to create a large telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes and combining data from several very - long - baseline interferometry ( VLBI ) stations around the Earth. The aim is to observe the immediate environment of the Milky Way 's supermassive black hole Sagittarius A *, as well as the even larger black hole in Messier 87, with angular resolution comparable to the black hole 's event horizon. Contents 1 Overview 2 Contributing institutes 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External links Overview The EHT is composed of many radio observatories or radio telescope facilities around the world to produce a high - sensitivity, high - angular - resolution telescope. Through the technique of very - long - baseline interferometry ( VLBI ), many independent radio antennae separated by hundreds or thousands of miles can be used in concert to create a `` virtual '' telescope with an effective diameter of the entire planet. The effort includes development and deployment of submillimeter dual polarization receivers, highly stable frequency standards to enable very - long - baseline interferometry at 230 -- 450 GHz, higher - bandwidth VLBI backends and recorders, as well as commissioning of new submillimeter VLBI sites. Each year since its first data capture in 2006, the EHT array has moved to add more observatories to its global network of radio telescopes. The first image of the Milky Way 's supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A *, was expected to be produced in April 2017, but due to the South Pole Telescope being closed during winter ( April to October ) the data shipment delayed the processing to December 2017, when the shipment arrived. A date for the release of the image has not yet been annouced. The image will also test Einstein 's general relativity at the extreme. Data collected on hard drives must be transported by jet airliner ( a so - called sneakernet ) from the various telescopes to the MIT Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts, USA, and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany, where the data are cross-correlated and analyzed on a grid computer made from about 800 CPUs all connected through a 40 Gbit / s network. Contributing institutes The Event Horizon Telescope and Global mm - VLBI Array on the Earth. A schematic diagram of the VLBI mechanism of EHT. Each antenna, spread out over vast distances, has an extremely precise atomic clock. Analogue signals collected by the antenna are converted to digital signals and stored on hard drives together with the time signals provided by the atomic clock. The hard drives are then shipped to a central location to be synchronised. An astronomical observation image is obtained by processing the data gathered from multiple locations. Click on to view lager image. Some contributing institutions are : ALMA APEX Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics Arizona Radio Observatory, University of Arizona Caltech Submillimeter Observatory Combined Array for Research in Millimeter - wave Astronomy European Southern Observatory Georgia State University Goethe - Universität Frankfurt am Main Greenland Telescope Harvard -- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Haystack Observatory, MIT Institut de Radio Astronomie Millimetrique Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica ( INAOE ) East Asian Observatory - James Clerk Maxwell Telescope Large Millimeter Telescope Max Planck Institut für Radioastronomie National Astronomical Observatory of Japan National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory University of Massachusetts, Amherst Onsala Space Observatory Perimeter Institute Radio Astronomy Laboratory, UC Berkeley University of California, Berkeley ( RAL ) Radboud University Nijmegen Shanghai Astronomical Observatory ( SHAO ) Submillimeter Array ( SMA ) Universidad de Concepción Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México ( UNAM ) University of Chicago ( South Pole Telescope ) University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign University of Michigan References Jump up ^ Viewing the Shadow of the Black Hole at the Galactic Center Jump up ^ Polarimetric Imaging of the Massive Black Hole at the Galactic Center Jump up ^ Main project website Jump up ^ Overbye, Dennis ( 8 June 2015 ). `` Black Hole Hunters ''. NASA. Retrieved 8 June 2015. Jump up ^ Overbye, Dennis ; Corum, Jonathan ; Drakeford, Jason ( 8 June 2015 ). `` Video : Peering Into a Black Hole ''. New York Times. ISSN 0362 - 4331. Retrieved 9 June 2015. ^ Jump up to : O'Neill, Ian ( 2 July 2015 ). `` Event Horizon Telescope Will Probe Spacetime 's Mysteries ''. Discovery News. Retrieved 2015 - 08 - 21. Jump up ^ MIT Haystack observatory Jump up ^ Webb, Jonathan ( 8 January 2016 ). `` Event horizon snapshot due in 2017 ''. BBC News. Retrieved 2016 - 03 - 24. ^ Jump up to : Davide Castelvecchi ( 23 March 2017 ). `` How to hunt for a black hole with a telescope the size of Earth ''. Nature. 543 ( 7646 ) : 478 -- 480. Bibcode : 2017Natur. 543... 478C. doi : 10.1038 / 543478a. Retrieved 30 March 2017. Jump up ^ `` EHT Status Update, December 15 2017 ''. eventhorizontelescope.org. Retrieved 2018 - 02 - 09. Jump up ^ Mearian, Lucas ( 18 August 2015 ). `` Massive telescope array aims for black hole, gets gusher of data ''. Computer World. Retrieved 2015 - 08 - 21. Jump up ^ `` The Event Horizon Telescope and Global mm - VLBI Array on the Earth ''. www.eso.org. Retrieved 31 March 2017. Jump up ^ Event Horizon Telescope - Collaborators Archived 2017 - 06 - 10 at the Wayback Machine... August 2015. Further reading Non-technical : The Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy ( 2001 ), Fulvio Melia ( Princeton University Press ), ISBN 0691095051 Technical : The Galactic Supermassive Black Hole ( 2008 ), Fulvio Melia ( Princeton University Press ), ASIN B008VQXCN2 External links Official website Peering into a Black Hole, New York Times video 2015 Radio astronomy Concepts Astronomical interferometer ( History ) Very Long Baseline Interferometry ( VLBI ) Radio telescope ( Radio window ) Astronomical radio source Units ( watt and jansky ) Radio telescopes ( List ) Individual telescopes RATAN - 600 Radio Telescope ( Russia ) 500 m Aperture Spherical Telescope ( FAST, China ) Arecibo Observatory ( Puerto Rico, US ) Caltech Submillimeter Observatory ( CSO, US ) Effelsberg Telescope ( Germany ) Large Millimeter Telescope ( Mexico ) Yevpatoria RT - 70 ( Ukraine ) Galenki RT - 70 ( Russia ) Suffa RT - 70 ( Uzbekistan ) Green Bank Telescope ( West Virginia, US ) Lovell Telescope ( UK ) Ooty Telescope ( India ) UTR - 2 decameter radio telescope ( Ukraine ) Sardinia Radio Telescope ( Italy ) Usuda Telescope ( Japan ) Qitai Radio Telescope ( China ) Southern Hemisphere HartRAO ( South Africa ) Parkes Observatory ( Australia ) Warkworth Radio Astronomical Observatory ( NZ ) Interferometers Allen Telescope Array ( ATA, California, US ) Atacama Large Millimeter Array ( ALMA, Chile ) Australia Telescope Compact Array ( ATCA, Australia ) Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder ( ASKAP, Australia ) Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment ( CHIME, Canada ) Combined Array for Research in Millimeter - wave Astronomy ( CARMA, California, US ) European VLBI Network ( Europe ) Event Horizon Telescope ( EHT ) Green Bank Interferometer ( GBI, West Virginia, US ) Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope ( GMRT, India ) Korean VLBI Network ( KVN, South Korea ) Low - Frequency Array ( LOFAR, Netherlands ) MeerKAT ( South Africa ) Large Latin American Millimeter Array ( LLAMA, Argentina / Brazil ) Murchison Widefield Array ( MWA, Australia ) Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network ( MERLIN, UK ) Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope ( MOST, Australia ) Northern Cross Radio Telescope ( Italy ) Northern Extended Millimeter Array ( France ) One - Mile Telescope ( UK ) Primeval Structure Telescope ( PaST, China ) Square Kilometre Array ( SKA, Australia, South Africa ) Submillimeter Array ( SMA, US ) Very Large Array ( VLA, New Mexico, US ) Very Long Baseline Array ( VLBA, US ) Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope ( WSRT, Netherlands ) Space - based telescopes Spektr - R ( Russia ) HALCA ( Japan ) Observatories Algonquin Radio Observatory ( Canada ) Haystack Observatory ( US ) Jodrell Bank Observatory ( UK ) Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory ( UK ) National Radio Astronomy Observatory ( US ) Onsala Space Observatory ( Sweden ) Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science ( SAORAS, Russia ) Warkworth Radio Astronomical Observatory Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory ( PRAO ASC LPI, Russia ) Multi-use PARL ( Canada ) DRAO ( Canada ) ESA New Norcia ( Australia ) People Elizabeth Alexander John G. Bolton Edward George Bowen Ronald Bracewell Jocelyn Bell Burnell Arthur Covington Frank Drake Antony Hewish Karl Guthe Jansky ( Unit : jansky ) Kenneth Kellermann Frank J. Kerr John D. Kraus Bernard Lovell Jan Oort Joseph Lade Pawsey Ruby Payne - Scott Arno Penzias Govind Swarup Grote Reber Martin Ryle Gart Westerhout Paul Wild Robert Wilson Related articles Cosmic microwave background radiation SETI Interferometry Radio propagation Aperture synthesis Wow ! signal Radio signal from HD 164595 Pulsar timing array Optical astronomy Submillimetre astronomy Infrared astronomy High - energy astronomy Gravitational - wave astronomy Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Event_Horizon_Telescope&oldid=835233542 '' Categories : Interferometric telescopes Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links Articles with infoboxes completely from Wikidata Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia Talk Contents About Wikipedia Català Deutsch Español Français Italiano Polski Svenska 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 7 April 2018, at 12 : 11. 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Question: what is the purpose of the event horizon telescope
Answer: to observe the immediate environment of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, as well as the even larger black hole in Messier 87, with angular resolution comparable to the black hole's event horizon