If you want to find black holes but don’t have access to a mountain-top observatory or deep space telescope, there’s an app that will help astronomers find them.
Developed by Dutch Black Hole ConsortiumIt is an interdisciplinary research project based in the Netherlands. Black Hole Finder It’s a free program available both on smartphones and on the desktop website. After watching the short tutorial, Black GemThe mission is to search the skies for space phenomena called kilonovae at a telescope array in northern Chile. It is scheduled to launch in March 2024. Space.com As we mentioned on August 19th, the project recently expanded from only English and Dutch to support Spanish, German, Chinese, Bengali, Polish, and Italian.
As the number of transients occurring in one night is sometimes very high, we decided to keep things simple. Anyone who observes more than 1000 transients will be granted Super User status. We can then help you with follow-ups. We have also updated the follow-up process. We disabled this feature some time ago due to a high volume of follow-up requests. We ran out of telescope time on LCO due to too many follow-up requests. Now new telescope time is available and you can request another follow-up based on the brightness of the transient. Once you reach Super User status, you will be notified, a tutorial will be available and you can request follow-ups for transients less than 16 hours long.
Kilonovas, formed by the collision of a neutron star and a black hole, produce a blinding burst of electromagnetic radiation that can lead to the formation of a stellar-mass black hole. Kilonovas are 1,000 times more luminous than a normal nova, but only 1/10 to 1/100 as luminous as their better-known cousin, a supernova. As such, they can be hard to find, given their relatively short lifespan. Once accurately identified, a kilonova provides astronomers with a potential site to further study for evidence of a newly formed black hole. But with thousands of images to sift through and fewer than 40 members in the Dutch Black Hole Consortium, the organization needs citizen scientist volunteers.
Upon launching the app, the user is presented with three grainy black and white images of a single focus: the most recent photo, a reference image of the same area, and an overlay image showing the differences between the first two photos. A real kilonova has several important characteristics. First, it is a round, very white shape about 5-10 pixels in diameter. When comparing the new photo with the reference photo, the brightness of the kilonova changes in both images: fading, brightening, disappearing completely, or becoming newly visible.
[Related: Astronomers discover Earth’s closest black hole.]
But false positives are pretty easy to spot from their characteristics. Whatever the cause – cosmic ray interference, reflections, data processing errors – they are not round like kilonovae and often do not fall within the 5-10 pixel range, but appear stretched or distorted. After inspecting each set, users click whether the potential kilonova is “real” or “fake” and proceed to the next entry. However, if they get stuck on a particular example, they can choose “unknown” to spread their bets. Black Hole Finder introduced a new phase on August 1, opening the possibility of becoming a “Super User” after reviewing more than 1,000 sets of images. As a Super User, you can request the latest follow-up images obtained for review.
While using a black hole finder won’t earn you any high scores or cash prizes, the knowledge that you’re contributing to humanity’s understanding of astrophysics and the universe is worth more than any bragging rights.