M 87 Black Hole Alight in Glitter

The M 87 black hole, the first body of its type ever photographed by astronomers at the Earth Horizon Telescope, shows an unusual glitter…

Snapshots of the M 87* black hole obtained through imaging / geometric modeling, and the EHT array of telescopes in 2009–2017. The diameter of all rings is similar, but the location of the bright side varies. The variation of the thickness of the ring is most likely not real and results from the limited number of participating VLBI stations in earlier experiments. Image credit: © : M. Wielgus, D. Pesce & the EHT Collaboration

The first image of a black hole released in 2019 showed the body at the center of the galaxy M87 to look almost exactly as Albert Einstein predicted a century before.

A new analysis of data from that study sheds additional light on the lightless object — The ring is glittering.

“The results announced in April 2019 show an image of the shadow of a black hole, consisting of a bright ring formed by hot plasma swirling around M 87*, and a dark central part, where we expect the event horizon of the black hole to be,” states Maciek Wielgus, astronomer at Harvard University.

Black holes are among the strangest objects anywhere in the Cosmos, but even they create structure. Image credit: ESO, ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser/N. Bartmann

Join Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companion on Tuesday, October 6, when we will talk with Dr. Maciek Wielgus of Harvard University.

The Earth Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global network of radio telescopes, provides astronomers an instrument capable recording images with resolutions as detailed as that taken by an instrument as large as Earth. This array first recorded limited data from the M87 black hole in 2009, and…