Two-hundred-and-thirty-six years after British scientist and philosopher John Michell put forward the theory of black holes in 1783, a team of scientists from around the world — including experts from Academia Sinica — have finally proven their existence.
On Wednesday, Taiwanese researchers participating in the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project shared the first-ever image of the edge of a black hole — known as an event horizon — during a news conference held at the same time as others in Washington, Santiago, Brussels, Shanghai and Tokyo.
It is a significant accomplishment by Taiwan’s scientific community and an achievement that all Taiwanese can rightfully feel proud of.
A black hole is a region of space where the gravitational pull is so strong, everything that crosses its event horizon — even light — is sucked inside.
The evolution of the science behind black holes over several hundred years has been a truly international effort.
Michell’s initial theory built upon British physicist Isaac Newton’s concept of escape velocity and James Bradley’s work on the speed of light. Applying German-born Albert Einstein’s formula of special relativity, in 1931, Indian astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar provided a mathematical calculation — now known as the Chandrasekhar limit — which predicted that white dwarf stars could theoretically collapse into black holes.
Several years later, US theoretical physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer built upon Chandrasekhar’s work, and in 1972, US and British astronomers discovered evidence of what is generally recognized as the first positively identified black hole, the Cygnus X-1.
The black hole photographed by the international team of scientists working on the EHT project is “supermassive,” with a mass 6.5 billion times that of the sun. It is located in the center of the galaxy M87, which is about 16 megaparsecs (55 million light years) away from Earth. The achievement has been likened to finding a doughnut on the surface of the moon.
Obtaining photographic evidence provided a unique challenge, since astronomers had previously calculated that such a task would require a telescope the size of the Earth.
However, researchers found a way around this by using a technique called interferometry, which involves using a network of widely distributed telescopes simultaneously trained on the same object.
Experts from Academia Sinica helped install three of eight radio telescopes, which form the EHT project’s global network of radio observatories across four continents. The observatories’ combined power is equivalent to a telescope almost the size of the Earth.
It is a truly collaborative effort to further humanity’s understanding of the universe. This stands in stark contrast to the actions of some nations to militarize space for their own benefit.
In 2007, China drew international condemnation after it destroyed one of its satellites, generating a large cloud of hazardous space debris in the process. The action was widely believed to be a test by the Chinese military of an anti-satellite missile designed to disable vital satellite communications systems of its enemies, such as the US’ global positioning system.
Last month, India destroyed one of its satellites in a similar test, albeit at a low orbit so that any debris should fall quickly to Earth, experts have said. Nevertheless, it is a worrying development and signals the beginning of a new space race.
The significant contribution by Taiwanese scientists, which has helped to finally prove the existence of black holes and enabled the world to get its first glimpse of a black hole is a cause for national celebration.
It is momentous achievement for humanity and a fitting reminder of the positive contribution Taiwan’s liberal democracy and the ingenuity of its people can offer to the world.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers