Fresh Analysis Confirms the Black Hole’s Iconic Ring is Real
WHO:
Nature - The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration produced the first image of a black hole’s shadow.
Nature - Junichiro Makino, an astrophysicist at Kobe University in Japan, and his collaborators questioned the original image analysis.
Nature - An independent research group reanalysed the EHT data.
Nature - The image credit names S. Lai, N. Thyagarajan, O. I. Wong, and F. Diakogiannis of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.
New Scientist Space - The article reports that an independent check supports the black hole image’s doughnut-shaped ring and general relativity.
WHAT:
Phys.org - A four-person team developed a new imaging technique that validated the 2019 image of M87*.
Nature - The independent analysis produced new images that largely corroborate the EHT collaboration’s original findings.
Nature - The original image showed a bright ring of roughly the expected radius around a darker central disk.
Nature - Makino’s team obtained an image showing a glob of radio emissions rather than a ring after changing assumptions in an EHT data-analysis technique.
New Scientist Space - The article says the iconic ring shape “really is there” and that the image and general relativity “still stands.”
WHERE:
Nature - The black hole is at the centre of the M87 galaxy.
Nature - The EHT array consists of ground-based radio telescopes across several continents.
Nature - Makino is based at Kobe University in Japan.
WHEN:
Nature - The independent analysis was published on 11 November.
WHY:
Nature - Critics questioned whether the circular shape in the original image was an artefact of the image-reconstruction techniques.
Nature - The black hole image was consistent with astrophysical models based on Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which predicted the existence of black holes.
HOW:
Phys.org - The validation used an imaging technique developed by a team from CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency.
Nature - The EHT collaboration combines measurements collected simultaneously by multiple radio telescopes; in principle, the reconstruction achieves the detail of a single radio dish as wide as Earth.
Nature - The independent team used an algorithm to combine telescope measurements differently from the original analysis.
Nature - Makino’s team applied an analysis technique used by the EHT collaboration but with slightly different assumptions.
(UPDATED November 12, 2026 01:16 UTC)
An independent analysis has reaffirmed the famous ring around M87’s central black hole. Researchers used a new imaging technique to recheck the Event Horizon Telescope data. Their results largely support the original image and Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
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(UPDATED November 11, 2026 22:05 UTC)
An independent reanalysis supports the iconic ring around the black hole in galaxy M87. Researchers had questioned whether image-processing techniques created the ring, rather than revealing real emissions. The findings also support Einstein’s general relativity, which predicted black holes.