There are large black holes at the center of just about every major galaxy, including our own. In 2022, an image was released from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) that showed the first ever image of a black hole.
The image is essentially a red and orange donut shape, but it has been hailed by many as one of the most significant pictures every made by humans because of it what it is.
Just one problem. According to a new study, the image may not be accurate.
The image claims to show the shadow of the black hole in the middle, with the surrounding ring being made by whatever matter is falling in. The study, however, says that the structure of the black hole should not be ring shaped.
Instead, they say that it should have an elongated disk shape and that the ring in the image is just from an artifact made from analyzing the data.
In a statement, the lead author, Assistant Professor Miyoshi Makoto of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, said:
“Our image is slightly elongated in the east-west direction, and the eastern half is brighter than the western half. We think this appearance means the accretion disk surrounding the black hole is rotating at about 60 percent of the speed of light.”
He goes on to say:
“Why, then, did the ring-like image emerge? Well, no telescope can capture an astronomical image perfectly. We hypothesise that the ring image resulted from errors during EHT’s imaging analysis and that part of it was an artefact, rather than the actual astronomical structure.”
The team who worked on this study took the data that was collected from the EHT and analyzed it using commonly available methods. The result says that the actual shape of the black hole, and therefore its event horizon, is much more elongated. Additional data should be collected to help validate, or rule out, the claims made.
Does it really matter what shape the black hole is?
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