From Dr. Becky.
Go to https://ground.news/drbecky to stay fully informed with the latest Space and Science news. Save 50% off the Vantage plan through my link for unlimited access this month only. – AD | Do you remember the famous images of the supermassive black holes in the centre of the galaxy M87 and our own galaxy the Milky Way that were taken by the Event Horizon Telescope? Well this month a team of researchers based in Japan, have released a paper claiming that they can’t reproduce an image with a ring-like structure with the same data of the Milky Way’s black hole, and instead get something that looks a bit more like a blob. On top of that they published a claim back in 2022 that they also couldn’t reproduce the black hole image for the M87* data as well. Now the Event Horizon Team have responded saying they think the Japanese group of researchers have got it wrong. So there’s a lot to unpack here, and this video is going to cover a lot of ground starting first with 1) A quick recap on what you’re seeing in these black hole images 2) How the Event Horizon Telescope works and how these images are constructed 3) What Miyoshi, Kato & Makino are claiming is wrong with the images, and 4) The Event Horizon Telescope team’s response and where that leaves us.
00:00 – Introduction
02:44 – Ground News AD
04:50 – A quick recap on the radio light you’re seeing in these black hole images
07:19 – How the Event Horizon Telescope works (VLBI) and how these images are constructed
10:08 – What Miyoshi, Kato & Makino are claiming is wrong with the images
15:25 – The Event Horizon Telescope team’s response and where that leaves us
22:28 – Bloopers
Miyoshi, Kito & Makino (2024; claim the Sag A* image is wrong) – https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/534/4/3237/7660988
Miyoshi, Kito & Makino (2022; claim the M87* is wrong) – https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac6ddb
Previous EHT response from two years ago on M87* claims – https://eventhorizontelescope.org/blog/imaging-reanalyses-eht-data
EHT response from 2024 on Sag A* claims: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/blog/response-independent-analysis-ehtc-imaging-sgr-miyoshi-et-al-2024
Patel et al. (2022; research paper with code to reproduce the black hole images yourself with public data) – https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10040660
EHT announcement of M87* image with research papers linked – https://eventhorizontelescope.org/press-release-april-10-2019-astronomers-capture-first-image-black-hole
EHT announcement of Sagittarius A* image with research papers linked – https://eventhorizontelescope.org/blog/astronomers-reveal-first-image-black-hole-heart-our-galaxy
Public TED talk on machine learning algorithm used by EHT team – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7n2rYt9wfU
Seminar on machine learning algorithm used by EHT team (with more detail) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGL_OL3OrCE
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: https://www.fiverr.com/mgs_editing
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👩🏽💻 I’m Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford (Christ Church). I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don’t know. If you’ve ever wondered about something in space and couldn’t find an answer online – you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
