Physicists dispute a claim of detecting a black hole’s ‘photon ring’
If real, the thin ring of light would probe the gravity around a black hole in a new way
![Two side-by-side images of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87, both taken by the Event Horizon Telescope EHT. The left image looks like a luminous blurry donut. On the right is a more recent image that isolates a circular feature of the black hole’s emission and resembles a thin ring.](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/082922_ec_photon-ring_feat.jpg?fit=1030%2C580&ssl=1)
In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope unveiled an image of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87 (left). Now, scientists claim that they’ve uncovered an even more elusive feature of the black hole, its photon ring (right) created by light that orbited the black hole before escaping.
Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, A.E. Broderick et al/Astrophysical Journal 2022