In April 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration made history by releasing the first-ever image of a black hole, showcasing the glow of the accretion disk around the supermassive black hole in the M87 galaxy, located 54 million light-years away.

Since that groundbreaking image, the EHT has continued its work, capturing images of other supermassive black holes, including Sagittarius A* at the center of our Milky Way.

The EHT is a global collaboration involving researchers from thirteen institutions, utilizing data from over 25 ground-based and space-based telescopes.

The latest findings from the EHT were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, detailing observations from the second EHT campaign conducted in April 2018.

Recently, the EHT revealed a significant gamma-ray flare from M87's jet, marking the first such event observed in over a decade and releasing energy across multiple wavelengths.

This gamma-ray flare lasted approximately three days and occupied a volume about 170 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

Giacomo Principe, a researcher involved in the study, noted that the detection of the gamma-ray flare enhances our understanding of the emission region and its size.

The energy levels of the flare were notably higher than those typically found around black holes, suggesting a possible connection between the event horizon's asymmetry and the flare's position.

Researchers, including Daryl Haggard and Sera Markoff, emphasized the significance of these findings for understanding particle acceleration in black hole jets and the physics surrounding supermassive black holes.

The accretion disk surrounding M87 was described as a 'ring of fire,' highlighting the dynamic and energetic processes occurring in this region.

The multi-wavelength campaign that led to these discoveries included data from several prestigious observatories, such as NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Additionally, the EHT has provided new insights into M87, including the first image of a photon ring and a combined image of the black hole and its relativistic jet.