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(a) Given that the "baseline" of EHT is effectively the diameter of the Earth, compute angular resolution when observing the 21 cm line of hydrogen. (b) If one could install a radio telescope on the Moon, by what factor could EHT's reso- sion be increased?

(a) Given that the "baseline" of EHT is effectively the diameter of the Earth, compute angular resolution when observing the 21 cm line of hydrogen. (b) If one could install a radio telescope on the Moon, by what factor could EHT's reso- sion be increased?

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The very first “image" of a black hole, at the centre of galaxy M87, was recently taken by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). More accurately, EHT imaged radio emission from the disc of gas that orbits the black hole with a lack of emission from the centre being attributed to the black hole. This image was only possible because EHT is not a single radio telescope, but is in fact a network of telescopes from around the world that take advantage of something known as interferometry. Interferometry is a method for combining the light from multiple telescopes, which results in an image that could have been taken by a telescope that has a diameter equal to the distance between the telescopes referred to as the "“baseline"-rather than the size of each individual telescope. EHT in particular combines observations from several Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) stations in order to achieve a high angular resolution. (a) Given that the "baseline" of EHT is effectively the diameter of the Earth, compute its angular resolution when observing the 21 cm line of hydrogen. (b) If one could install a radio telescope o the Moon, by what factor could EHT's reso- lution be increased?
Transcribed Image Text:The very first “image" of a black hole, at the centre of galaxy M87, was recently taken by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). More accurately, EHT imaged radio emission from the disc of gas that orbits the black hole with a lack of emission from the centre being attributed to the black hole. This image was only possible because EHT is not a single radio telescope, but is in fact a network of telescopes from around the world that take advantage of something known as interferometry. Interferometry is a method for combining the light from multiple telescopes, which results in an image that could have been taken by a telescope that has a diameter equal to the distance between the telescopes referred to as the "“baseline"-rather than the size of each individual telescope. EHT in particular combines observations from several Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) stations in order to achieve a high angular resolution. (a) Given that the "baseline" of EHT is effectively the diameter of the Earth, compute its angular resolution when observing the 21 cm line of hydrogen. (b) If one could install a radio telescope o the Moon, by what factor could EHT's reso- lution be increased?
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