Google Chrome	70.0.3524.2 (Official Build) dev (64-bit)
Firmware Version Google_Lulu.6301.136.57

This is being opened as a bug but is a borderline feature request/opinion/question so please feel free to close if the consensus is to keep it as-is. 

# Navigate to chrome://accessibility
# Inspect any of the images next to the page headings such as this one:
<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAQCAYAAAAf8/9hAAAAVklEQVQ4jWN0bPmygJGRIZ6BDPD/P8NCJnI1MzAwMDAyMsQzkasZBig2gAWZs7eKmyhNzm1fsRuALDHqAiq7AJ/BFLtg4FMi5Qb8/8+wkFzN//8zLAQAep8egRbYUYIAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" alt="">

I understand that this is a decorative image and that it's expected that alt text would be NULL per w3.org: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/decorative/#image-with-adjacent-text-alternative

However, would it be better to make it more like example two on that page where it is combined with the heading next to it so the screen reader user doesn't even need to know that it's there?