Alexandru Lupsasca and Michael Johnson won the New Horizons award for their work on photon spheres — weird rings of light around black holes that may reveal a theory of quantum gravity.
Two scientists have won a $100,000 prize for describing both the structure and a way to detect mysterious black hole photon spheres. These enigmatic structures form at the edges of a black hole, and could reveal the underlying physics that govern the most extreme objects in the cosmos.
When photons stream toward a black hole, most are either bent away or engulfed permanently in the dark abyss. Yet some rare light particles avoid this fate — instead they surf the cosmic monster's gaping mouth in a series of tight orbits and, if the black hole is spinning, steal some of its rotational energy to miraculously spring free.
Searching for a cosmic laundromatSupermassive black holes are enormous, measuring roughly the width of the solar system, so it can take a photon around six days travelling at the speed of light to make an orbit. At the end of these six days, photons can either perform a U-turn to make another orbit, or fly into or away from the black hole. The photons that slip a black hole's gravity emerge in the form of an ultrathin halo around the pure black chasm: a photon sphere.
After making theoretical predictions of what the rings should look like, the pair and their colleagues set about devising ways to measure the halos. Johnson realized that the Event Horizon Telescope was perfect for this task, if only the photon sphere could be distinguished from the fuzzy band of other light streaming from the black hole.
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