For the first time, astronomers have captured powerful jets emanating from a black hole and the black hole itself in the same image. Until now, these could only be captured in separate images.
In a new article published in the journal Nature; Also known as M87 Messier 87 galaxy Image showing the supermassive black hole at its center, in Chile Atacama Submillimeter Array (ALMA) It was put together using 2018 data collected by telescopes around the world.
Astronomers use data from these telescopes to synchronize their signals using a technique called interferometry. Combined to form a virtual Earth-sized telescope.
A great mystery can be solved with this image
Black holes lurking at the center of M87 can shoot huge jets of matter far beyond the edges of their host galaxies. The galaxy that hosts the black hole is approx. 55 million light years away And M87 itself is 6.5 billion times larger than the Sun.
How black holes like this launch these jets is still a big mystery, but this new image could help solve that mystery.
in china Ru-Sen Lu of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory in his statement, “We know that jets are ejected from the region surrounding black holes, but we still don’t fully understand how this actually happens. To study this directly, we need to observe the jet’s source as close to the black hole as possible.” said.
The image is of the same black hole. Event Horizon Telescope It’s based on a previous image taken in 2017 and published in 2019. But the new image shows M87’s black hole at a much longer wavelength.
As a result, the new observation shows that the ring-like structure surrounding the black hole is about 50 percent larger than in the 2017 image of ETH. Astronomers believe this is because more of the material falling toward the black hole is visible in the new observations.
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