The European Southern Observatory (OES) announced Tuesday that radio telescopes have made test observations with the highest resolution ever obtained from Earth-based telescopes, and are likely to record 50 percent more detailed images of black holes in the future.

In a statement, OES, which operates two of the six radio telescopes used, ALMA and APEX, in Chile, said that after the experiment carried out, it is likely that it will be possible, in the future, to “Image of black holes more than ever observed“And farther, smaller and fainter, as well as” images of black holes 50% more detail“, making “the region immediately following the boundaries of the nearest supermassive black holes more visible.”

To see why this is such a remarkable achievement, consider the range of additional detail you get when you go from black and white photographs to black and white photographs. [fotografias] “In color,” highlights one of the experiment's coordinators, astrophysicist Sheperd Doeleman, according to a statement from the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard and Smithsonian University, in the United States.

In practical terms, the image of a black hole—a dense, dark, and therefore invisible object in the universe, with gravitational forces so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape—corresponds to the image of its black hole. The shadow is surrounded by a glowing ring structure made of gas..

The experiment, the results of which were published Tuesday in the journal The Astronomical Journal, was carried out by the international consortium Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which participated in observing two supermassive black holes through a network of eight radio telescopes spread around the world, coordinated to work as one, which includes ALMA and APEX.

In 2019, a team of hundreds of scientists revealed to the world First image of a supermassive black holeIn this case, its shadow is made up of hot, luminous gas swirling around it.

It is the black hole M87*, located at the center of the galaxy M87, 55 million light-years from Earth, and its mass is 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun.

Later, in 2022, the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, was released, which is located about 27,000 light-years from Earth and has a mass of about four million times the mass of the Sun.

Portuguese astrophysicist Hugo Messias Participate in both observations through ALMA.

In the pilot study released Tuesday, the same consortium conducted observations. Bright Distant Galaxies Testpowered by the massive black holes at its core.

“but, No images created.“Because, despite the powerful detections of radiation emitted by many distant galaxies, not enough antennas have been used to be able to accurately reconstruct an image from the data collected,” highlights a statement from OES, an astronomical organization of which Portugal is a part.