New fiery doughnut image is our most detailed glimpse of a black hole

The black hole at the centre of galaxy M87 has been imaged at higher resolution and is now revealed in even clearer detail

By Alex Wilkins

18 January 2024

The image on the right is our latest, and best, look at a black hole

EHT Collaboration

We have been given our most detailed look at a black hole yet, thanks to an update to the world’s first image of a black hole, taken one year later.

In 2019, researchers released an image of the supermassive black hole known as M87*, which is 55 million light years away at the centre of galaxy M87. That image, the world’s first glimpse of a black hole, was taken by a network of radio observatories around the world called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), during its first observation run in 2017.

Read more

‘Islands’ poking out of black holes may solve the information paradox

Advertisement

Now, the EHT collaboration has released a follow-up image of M87*, taken during a 2018 observation run that used an additional telescope in Greenland.

The light in the image isn’t coming out of the black hole because, as the name suggests, these objects don’t emit light. Instead, what you can see is the silhouette of the black hole at the centre of a mass of hot matter that the black hole is pulling inwards with its powerful gravity.

“This image is telling us the story that the black hole shadow is persistent, it is still there,” says EHT scientist Eduardo Ros. “We see that the ring is a beautiful circle. It’s very circular, it’s not an ellipse or something else. In this ring we also see an enhancement in the south, which is what we expected.”