Astronomers continue to search for black holes. While there have been indirect methods to find black holes, they have not been seen yet directly. A new method is being developed to find black holes.
Finding black holes can be difficult. A black hole cannot be seen directly. The best that astronomers can do is to see how it affects nearby objects as well as strong radiation coming from its vicinity. However, a new method by the researchers from the University of Waterloo would help in finding more black holes.
Avery Broderick, Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo together with Mansour Karami, a Ph.D. student from the Faculty of Science has developed a new method for finding black holes. The method has been developed along with colleagues from the United States and Iran. The method will be used to locate black holes as well as other dark objects in the universe.
Black holes are hard to detect. It absorbs light and does not emit radiation. Any radiation coming from it actually comes from light and matter falling into it. No image of a black hole has been photographed yet.
To study black holes, Broderick and Karami have proposed to have them studied not as single entities, but rather in large numbers. To do that, they have proposed to have two methods combined into one for the study. Those two would be microlensing and radio wave interferometry, according to Waterloo News.
Microlensing has been used by astronomers to discover very far objects. It takes one object to see another object. Light bends in the first object, and as it does so it would also make the other object appear brighter. However, microlensing has its own limitations as it would still not show much of the other object, as Science Daily reports.
In order to get better views of the object, radio wave interferometry would be used. As the microlensing event happens, radio waves would be used to get views of the object. This method would thus give more details about the object, such as its weight and mass. Using both methods will get a series of images of the black hole, which would then give scientists more details about it.
Looking for black holes can be hard. A new method being developed to find black holes will make it easier for astronomers to find them. A galaxy has recently been seen in a state of transformation, as earlier reported.
