Black Hole Photo Makes Einstein's Theory '500 Times Harder to Beat'

"The first image of a black hole, captured in 2019, has revealed more support for Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity," reports CNN, adding that the new finding suggests his theory is now 500 times harder to beat.

[W]hile light can't escape the inside of a black hole, it's possible for light to make a getaway in a region around the event horizon, or point of no return. This in-between space can look like a shadow. Because black holes have such immense gravity, which curves space-time, it can actually act like magnifier that makes the black hole's shadow appear larger than it is. The research team measured this distortion and found that the size of this black hole's shadow aligns with the theory of relativity — or matter warping space-time to create gravity...

"This is really just the beginning. We have now shown that it is possible to use an image of a black hole to test the theory of gravity," said Lia Medeiros, study coauthor and postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey, in a statement. "This test will be even more powerful once we image the black hole in the center of our own galaxy and in future EHT observations with additional telescopes that are being added to the array...."

"For the first time we have a different gauge by which we can do a test that's 500 times better, and that gauge is the shadow size of a black hole," said Feryal Özel, study coauthor and University of Arizona astrophysics professor. "When we obtain an image of the black hole at the center of our own galaxy, then we can constrain deviations from general relativity even further."

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