Since I’m not seeing her name nearly enough on the press, let’s give the attention Katie Boumandeserves. Thanks to her, we are now possible to see the first ever image of a black hole, something that people talked 200 years ago for the first time. It’s no longer a myth. We are girls and we can be whatever we want to be. Einstein would be proud of you, Katie. Thank you!
Here you can see a huge stack of hard drives she used for Messier 87’s black hole image data.
to clarify, these are two different young girls pulling two different swords from two different lakes, about a year apart. strange women in ponds will continue to distribute swords
Listen maybe Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is a good basis for a system of government.
I teach my 7th graders about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.
I bring in a graduated cylinder of it and we talk about how it’s used in nuclear power plants and gmo crops. How inhaling even the small amount I’m holding can lead to suffocation or even death. It’s found in vaccines and cancer cells, but also in infant formula and pet food. It is a huge component of acid rain, can cause severe burns, and has been found in places that were thought to be the most pristine and unpolluted locations on earth.
We talk about how there are little to no regulations on this chemical. No bans, no warning labels, and most manufacturers don’t even have to disclose their use of it in their products.
My students are outraged. We talk about what we can do. Create posters and flyers to spread awareness. Contact our senators with petitions to ban DHMO. Spread this information all over social media.
Then I explain that the real problem with dihydrogen monoxide is that….when I am thirsty…there is just nothing else as refreshing, and then I watch their looks of absolute shock and horror as I drink the entire vial down.
I. Fucking. Love. This.
This is how misinformation works. How propaganda works. How manipulation works.
may our education be stronger than fake news
Amen.
To those who don’t get it:
“Dihydrogen monoxide” is the chemical name for water, AKA H2O.
another important element of understanding the joke is understanding how pH levels work
yup. that’s a higher number alright.
“Everyone who has ever touched or consumed this chemical has died”
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.
The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun.
Supermassive black holes are relatively tiny astronomical objects — which has made them impossible to directly observe until now. As the size of a black hole’s event horizon is proportional to its mass, the more massive a black hole, the larger the shadow. Thanks to its enormous mass and relative proximity, M87’s black hole was predicted to be one of the largest viewable from Earth — making it a perfect target for the EHT.
The shadow of a black hole is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole’s boundary — the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name — is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across.
on one hand this thread makes me want to cry a lot and on the other I’m like, well, my brain is a complex system and now I have a sort of entry point to figure out how it works, so that’s good
