Astronomers analyzing the first-ever imaged black hole, M87*, have discovered that its shadow changes from year to year due to turbulence in its surrounding gas. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) confirmed these findings, revealing that the black hole’s appearance evolves over time.
In 2019, the EHT released an image of M87*, a supermassive black hole located 55 million light-years away. The shadow in this image was caused by intense gravitational bending of light around the event horizon. Researchers noticed changes between 2017 and 2018 observations, with the bright ring surrounding the shadow shifting.
This shift is linked to the extreme nature of M87*’s accretion disc, a swirling mass of gas being pulled toward the event horizon. The EHT team applied statistical analysis and found that turbulence in the hot gas surrounding the black hole caused these changes.
The orientation of M87* also revealed something interesting: one side appears brighter due to relativistic motion of material in the accretion disc. This discovery supports previous theoretical models and connects to other research on M87*’s powerful jets of plasma.
Studying black holes requires a network of Earth-sized telescopes, including facilities like ALMA, SPT, and JCMT. The EHT team is now analyzing more recent observations to refine models of black hole accretion and explore how light polarization changes over time.
Source: https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/03/black-hole-m87-changes-over-time