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It is assumed that there are physicists who, year after year, look expectantly at their phones on a Tuesday in early October late in the morning, European time; After all, it could be that Göran Hansson from the Swedish Academy of Sciences calls and wants to get rid of a Nobel Prize, it was about time. This year’s winners obviously don’t belong to these people, at least not to all of them. The official announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics exceptionally began a quarter of an hour late because it was not possible for all the winners to speak on the phone in time. Another good idea: you have to convey a message that for most scientists it is the absolute culmination of their careers, and then do, do, letterbox.
But in the end it was finally announced: this year the Nobel Prize in Physics goes to three researchers who have made a decisive contribution to the fact that black holes in the worldview of physicists went from a vague mathematical possibility to an absolutely real fact. Half of the prize is awarded for specific observations, shared by German astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, near Munich, and Andrea Ghez, who conducts research at the University of California, Los Angeles: she is just that is the fourth woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics. The other half goes to Roger Penrose for his theoretical work on black holes.
Researchers have shown that black holes are not just crazy theorists, but reality.
The award goes to three researchers whose results can still be marveled today. They have shown that black holes, these marvels of relativity theory, are not mere theoretical nonsense, but simply reality, whether human capacity can handle them or not.
Originally, the idea was nothing more than a solution to Einstein’s equations: that large masses of matter could collapse under their own weight at a single point, creating a structure with such an enormous force of attraction. Nothing can escape the attraction of these objects that were careless enough to cross the so-called event horizon, not even light.
But in 1965, ten years after Einstein’s death, the now excellent Briton Roger Penrose was able to mathematically demonstrate that these objects are completely possible and inherently consistent within the framework of the theory of relativity; it is not a wild idea to stumble upon if principles are exaggerated too much. but an elemental ingredient that is naturally derived from Einstein’s theory and has its place in it. Along with Stephen Hawking, who died in 2018, Penrose was later able to show other properties of the strange objects, which is why the name “black holes” was only established later.
Sir Roger Penrose published pioneering work in the field of linear algebra as a student of mathematics.
(Photo: BROCHURE / AFP)
This opened up a whole new vision of the infinite possibilities of the universe, and astrophysicists soon knew how to use it. In the years that followed, it became increasingly clear that many observations can only be explained by assuming that there are giant, “supermassive” black holes with more than a million solar masses at the center of many galaxies. This is the only way to interpret quasars, distant galaxies, which spew enormous amounts of energy into space: energy is released when a huge black hole heats up and eats up matter.
It wasn’t long before suspicions of a similar object emerged directly in front of our front door: Astronomers have long suspected a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, in a region called Sagittarius A * in the constellation of Sagittarius. But for a long time it seemed completely unthinkable to observe such an object directly.
But in the 1990s it was possible for the first time to accurately monitor at least the surroundings of Sagittarius A *, despite the fact that it is no larger than the solar system and is hidden behind a multitude of galactic dust clouds. New Nobel Prize winner Andrea Ghez used the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to monitor the motion of stars around the galactic center in the near-infrared range; at this wavelength, the dust is less disturbing. Reinhard Genzel’s team did something similar with the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
Andrea Mia Ghez once told a blogger that the Apollo missions motivated her as a child to become a scientist.
(Photo: Christopher Dibble / AFP)
After years of observation, which has been perfected to this day, both groups were able to establish that the stars at the heart of the galaxy rotate at high speed around an extremely compact massive object. For all that is known, it can actually only be a supermassive black hole of around four million solar masses.
This work is far from over, the adventure of exploring black holes is just beginning. At the hastily convened press conference in Garching on Tuesday, a very cheerful Reinhard Genzel spoke about the new, even better results he hopes to get from the planned European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which will come into operation in 2025.
Added to this are the successes of gravitational wave astronomy, which one may have been used to for a long time, but which would have been inconceivable just a few years ago: the detectors are now collecting signals from collisions between black holes and other objects with constant regularity. The observation and analysis of black holes has become a central part of modern astronomy and cosmology. “Understanding these mysterious celestial phenomena is crucial if we want to understand how our universe was created and how it will one day end,” says Grahame Blair of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.
The breakthrough in the area of black holes in recent years has led to nothing
Although colleagues are now full of praise for the Nobel Prize Committee’s decision, the three laureates enjoy the utmost respect. And yet the decision comes as a surprise in some way. On the one hand, because from a purely statistical point of view, quantum physics would actually have been more involved. After all, astronomy recently won two Nobel Prizes, the inevitable 2017 for the discovery of gravitational waves and last year for exoplanets. In addition, the great advance of recent years in the field of black holes has come to nothing: the first direct image of a black hole that went around the world in April 2019, taken by the international joint project Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) in the center of the Galaxy M87.
An award for this work was deemed unlikely for several reasons: it would have been difficult to select a maximum of three award winners from the huge collaboration, and the technology used was basically not new. Nonetheless, it may be bitter to some in the EHT collaboration that the price now simply overlooks them. Her work is recognized in the explanatory memorandum, but the prize for the indirect proof of a supermassive black hole is not for her, but for Ghez and Genzel.
But most of them take it as something sporty or humble. “This award is absolutely deserved,” says Anton Zensus of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, president of the EHT Collaborative Council. “Both groups have worked really hard and drilled really big boards.” Additionally, Zensus is pleased that an award has been awarded to his field, which is also a satisfaction to him and his colleagues.
Actually, the EHT group would have long wanted to have published their own image of the black hole in the center of the Milky Way, the data has been available since 2017. But the assessment is not complete yet. “We are still working hard to evaluate our data on Sagittarius A *, but it is very difficult,” says Zensus. In addition, the bar is high because Genzel and Ghez have already made so many observations: “The result that we are presenting will be verified based on the many things we already know.” If something goes wrong, it’s easy to be embarrassed. After all, thanks to the work of the new Nobel Prize winners, you already have a very good idea of the amazing processes in the center of the Milky Way, basically right on our doorstep and yet so far away.
