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The first photo, when the lobe made from the black hole, looks a little sharper.
Originally released in 2019unprecedented The historical image of the supermassive black hole in the center of the Galaxy Messier 87 captured in essence an invisible heavenly object Using direct visualization.
The image shows the first direct visual evidence that there are black holes, demonstrating the central dark area, encapsulated by a ring of light, which looks brighter on one side. Astronomers called the object “a fuzzy, orange donut.”
Now scientists used machine learning to give the image a cleaner update, which is more like a “thin” donut, researchers said. The central region is darker and larger, surrounded by a bright ring when hot gas enters the black hole in a new image.
In 2017, astronomers intended to observe the invisible heart of the massive Messier 87 galaxies, or M87, near the Vergo Galaxy cluster 55 million light years from the Earth.
Cooperation on the telescope of events called EHT is a global network of telescopes, which shot the first photo of a black hole. More than 200 researchers have been working on the project for more than ten years. The project was named after the horizon of the event, the proposed border around the black hole, which is a return point where light or radiation cannot avoid.
To capture the image of a black hole, scientists have combined the strength of the seven radioteles around the world, using a very long basic interferometry, according to the European Southern Observatory, which is part of EHT. This array Effectively created a virtual telescope of the same size as the Earth.
The data of the original observation of 2017 were combined with the machine learning method to capture the full resolution of what the telescopes were first seen. A new, more detailed image was released, as well as research On Thursday c Astrophysical magazine lettersField
“Thanks to our new Primo machine learning technology, we were able to achieve the maximum resolution of the current array,” said Leah Medeiros, lead author, post -class researcher at the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, in his statement.
“Since we cannot study black holes in full, the image detail plays a critical role in our ability to understand his behavior. The width of the ring in the image is now less than two, which will become a powerful restriction for our theoretical models and gravity tests. ”
Medeiros and other EHT members have developed interferometric modeling with the main component, Or Primo. The algorithm depends on training in the dictionary in which computers create rules based on large volumes of the material. If the computer is provided with a series of images of various bananas, in combination with some training, it can say whether an unknown image is or does not contain a banana.
Computers using Primo analyzed more than 30,000 modeling images of black holes with high resolution to choose common structural details. This allowed machine learning on the merits to fill in the spaces of the original image.
“Primo is a new approach to the difficult task of constructing images from EHT observations,” said Tod Lauer, an astronomer from the National Scientific Astronomical Laboratory of Astronomy of the National Fund of the National Fund of the Scientific Fund, or Noirlab. “This provides a way to compensate for absent information about the observed object, which is required to create an image that would be noticed using one giant radio telescope the size of the ground.”
Black holes consist of a huge amount of matter compressed in a small territory, according to NASAHaving created a massive gravitational field that attracts everything around it, including light. These powerful heavenly phenomena also have a way to overheat the material around them and deform the space.
The material accumulates around black holes, heats up to billions of degrees and reaches almost the speed of light. The light leans around the gravity of a black hole, which creates a photon ring visible in the image. The shadow of the black hole is represented by a dark central area.
Visual confirmation of black holes also acts as confirmation The theory of the common relativity of Albert EinsteinEinstein predicted a field in theory that dense, compact regions will have such intensive gravity that nothing could avoid them. But if the heated materials in the form of plasma surround the black hole and emit light, the event horizon could be seen.
The new image can help scientists conduct more accurate measurements of the mass of the black hole. Researchers can also apply Primo to other EHT observations, including observations Black hole in the center of our Galaxy of the Milky WayField
“The image of 2019 was only a beginning,” Medeiros said. “If the picture costs thousands of words, the data underlying this image have much more stories that need to be told. Primo will continue to remain a critical tool when extracting such an understanding. ”
