There is also the contribution of Sardinia in the new images of the black hole M87 , the first to have been immortalized, published by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).
The international research group that collaborated on the project also includes researchers from the University of Cagliari , as well as scholars from the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), the University of Studies of Naples Federico II.
The new images of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy were recently published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics : this time they were created starting from data from observations carried out in April 2018 , a year later than the data that led to the image released in 2019.
Thanks to the participation of a new telescope, the Greenland Telescope, and a greatly improved data acquisition rate across all telescopes in the EHT network, the 2018 observations offer a view of the source independent of the first observations in 2017 .
The images reveal a bright ring, the same size as the one observed in 2017, surrounding a deep central depression, "the shadow of the black hole", as predicted by general relativity. What differs, the researchers note in a note, is the position of the ring's peak brightness, which has moved by about 30º compared to the 2017 images, a phenomenon "consistent with our theoretical understanding of the variability of turbulent material around black holes", explain the experts.
(Unioneonline/vl)
