Sky & Telescope February 2012
The February 2012 issue describes the story of the Event Horizon Telescope project, which seeks to image the dark silhouette of a supermassive black hole. The EHT isn't one scope but a network of antennas spread across the globe, stretched from Hawaii to Europe west-east and Greenland to the South Pole north-south. By combining simultaneous observations from different antennas, astronomers can create a planet-sized virtual dish and narrow in on our galaxy's central black hole, looking to see if material near the event horizon behaves as Einstein's theory of gravity says it should. There's no guarantee so deep in warped spacetime. Such an image, the first direct sighting ever of these singular mysteries, will change forever our understanding of black holes.
Fred Espenak and Jay Anderson's feature will tell you everything you need to know about when and where to observe May's annular solar eclipse.
This month you can also catch the four brightest planets, a dozen planetary nebulae, and the approach of the first discovered near-Earth asteroid. To find out more, read our online Table of Contents.
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