This black hole will make Einstein’s theory more difficult to modify. Up to 500 times

The first photo of a black hole, taken in 2019 in the galaxy M87, revealed that Albert Einstein’s famous theory, called general relativity, is even more plausible. The study was released on Thursday in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

What is general relativity

General Theory of Relativity (GST) is, in short, a theory that describes gravity. It shows that each mass is a source of curvature of the surrounding space. The greater the mass, the greater the force of gravity, i.e. the greater the curvature of space.

They focused on the “shadow”

Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope team, which took the first image of a black hole in galaxy M87, focused on analyzing the “shadow” of the black hole. The concept should not be taken literally, as black holes are not solid objects and thus prevent light from passing through them. Black holes can absorb light inward. It cannot escape, but it can end up in regions around the event horizon or at the point of no return. The space created in this way can give the illusion of a shadow. The research team measured this distortion and found that the “shadow” of the photographed black hole appears to wobble, and its diameter is in line with predictions from general relativity.

“We have shown that M87’s measured shadow size narrows the space for adjustments to Einstein’s general relativity nearly 500 times over previous solar system studies,” said Feryal Özel, study co-author and professor of astrophysics at the University of Arizona.

Purpose: credibility

While Einstein’s theory of general relativity has already been the subject of numerous tests, more research is still needed to confirm whether it is applicable to all astrophysical objects.

– For the first time, we have a different gauge with which we can conduct a much better test. That measure is the size of the black hole’s “shadow”, said Özel. “When we get an image of a black hole at the center of our own galaxy, we can make general relativity even more credible,” he concluded.

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