Black holes all look the same, regardless of their size

Mike Letterman

May 16, 2022, 5:00 AM
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The release of a remarkable image of the black hole at the center of our galaxy isn't only an incredible scientific achievement, it also agrees with predictions about what black holes are and how these strange objects are formed by the power of gravity.

Sagittarius A* is a type of black hole that is found at the center of most of the universe. Ours is 4.3 million times the mass of the sun, which is less than the mass of the sun that was imaged in 2019.

The EHT Collaboration created a flurry of images of Sagittarius A*, using ray tracing, a technique that visualizes the properties of the black hole based on data collected with the radio telescope array and predictions made by Einstein's theory of general relativity. The images shown here were created by UArizona's Chi-kwan Chan. — The EHT Collaboration created a flurry of images of Sagittarius A*, using ray tracing, a technique that visualizes the properties of the black hole based on data collected with the radio telescope array and predictions made by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The images shown here were created by UArizona’s Chi-kwan Chan. Ben Prather/EHT Theory Working Group/Chi-Kwan Chan

Both of the black holes have a distinctive donut shape. Physicists predicted that black holes would look the same no matter what size they were.

The black hole researcher at the University of Arizona said that the light appears like a ring and is purely gravity.

This scaling is unusual because most things that exist at different scales look very different because of the way their mass is supported. It seems that black holes are the same as big or small. The European Southern Observatory has a comparison image of Sagittarius A* and Messier 87. The two are very similar.

Size comparison of the two black holes imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration: M87*, at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87, and Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), at the centre of the Milky Way. — Size comparison of the two black holes imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration: M87*, at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87, and Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), at the center of the Milky Way. EHT collaboration (acknowledgment: Lia Medeiros, xkcd)

If we were able to image them, they would look like the images of Sagittarius A* and Messier 87. They would show the same donut shape.

Psaltis said, "Wherever we look, we should see donuts, and they all should look more or less the same." We dislike a world where things don't have an anchor point.