Nasa to launch giant balloon fitted with telescope to spot black holes

New York: A giant balloon fitted with a new NASA telescope to spot black holes is set to take off this month. [caption id=“attachment_1712919” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Agencies[/caption] Scientists at the Washington University in St Louis and NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in Texas will launch the balloon, inflated with high pressure helium, that will carry the X-Calibur telescope high into the atmosphere. The balloon will rise nearly 1,20,000 feet above the earth, media reports said. X-Calibur will search for black holes and clues about how they fit Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. “It would focus on various celestial objects including black holes visible from the northern Hemisphere,” said Henric Krawczynski, a professor of physics at the Washington University. X-Calibur will spot the black holes by looking for X-rays emitted by matter just before it disappears inside the black hole.