Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) tagged posts

Ready for its close-up: New Technology Sharpens Images of Black Holes

Credit: Broderick et al. 2022, ApJ, 935, 61

Using new computational algorithms, scientists have measured a sharp ring of light predicted to originate from photons whipping around the back of a supermassive black hole.

When scientists unveiled humanity’s historic first image of a black hole in 2019 — depicting a dark core encircled by a fiery aura of material falling toward it — they believed even richer imagery and insights were waiting to be teased out of the data.

Simulations predict that, obscured by that bright orange glow, there should exist a thin, bright ring of light created by photons flung around the back of the black hole by its intense gravity.

Now, a team of researchers has combined theoretical predictions and sophisticated imaging algorithms to “remaster” the ori...

Read More

Telescopes Unite in Unprecedented Observations of Famous Black Hole

EHT Collaboration

In April 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole in galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). However, that remarkable achievement was just the beginning of the science story to be told.

Data from 19 observatories released today promise to give unparalleled insight into this black hole and the system it powers, and to improve tests of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

“We knew that the first direct image of a black hole would be groundbreaking,” says Kazuhiro Hada of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, a co-author of a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that describes the large set of data...

Read More

String Theory Solves Mystery about How Particles Behave Outside a Black Hole Photon Sphere

An artist’s impression of a “string” passing near a black hole. As the string approaches the black hole, it is gradually stretched. Then, as it moves past the black hole, it begins to vibrate. The image to the left, which was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope, represents the shadow of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87, including the ring of light around it. (Credit: EHT Collaboration; Kavli IPMU (Kavli IPMU modified EHT’s original image)).

A paper by the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) Director Ooguri Hirosi and Project Researcher Matthew Dodelson on the string theoretical effects outside the black hole photon sphere has been selected for the “Editors’ Suggestion” of the journal Physical Review D...

Read More

New Images reveal Magnetic Structures near Supermassive Black Hole

View of the M87 supermassive black hole and jet
Credit: EHT Collaboration; Goddi et al., ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); Kravchenko et al.; J. C. Algaba, I. Martí-Vidal, NRAO/AUI/NSF.

Work gives clues about how powerful jets are driven. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has produced a new image showing details of the magnetic fields in the region closest to the supermassive black hole at the core of the galaxy M87. The new work is providing astronomers with important clues about how powerful jets of material can be produced in that region.

A worldwide team of astronomers using the Event Horizon Telescope, a collection of eight telescopes, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, measured a signature of magnetic fields — called polarization — around the black...

Read More