Astronomers have revealed a new photo of a black hole lurking at the heart of a distant galaxy.
The new image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy, known as M87, while not groundbreaking, provides more evidence for Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Published in the January issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics, the new study uses data gathered by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) in 2018. The newly assembled image shows the material in the accretion disk around the black hole in a different position, indicating its motion as it is consumed.
Researchers also added data from the Greenland Telescope located in northwestern Greenland to improve the coverage of the array.
“Multiyear EHT observations provide independent snapshots of the horizon-scale emission, allowing us to confirm the persistence, size, and shape of the black hole shadow, and constrain the intrinsic structural variability of the accretion flow,” reads the study.
Researchers explained the significance of the new image.
“A fundamental requirement of science is to be able to reproduce results”, said Dr. Keiichi Asada, an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan, in a press release. “Confirmation of the ring in a completely new data set is a huge milestone for our collaboration and a strong indication that we are looking at a black hole shadow and the material orbiting around it.”
Scientists plan to use additional data gathered in 2018 to continue studying the black hole.
In April 2023, Scientists released an image of the M87 black hole using data captured by the EHT in 2017, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
A recently released decades-long study of the black hole also revealed that it is spinning.
