Detailed image of supermassive black hole shows its powerful jet

New images of a supermassive black hole reveal a disk of matter falling into it and powerful winds created by the process. The black hole in question – M87* – was the first black hole directly imaged several years ago. This new data will help researchers complete the picture.

M87* is about 55 million light-years away and lies at the center of a giant galaxy called M87. In 2017, his eight telescopes at the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) captured the first images of M87*. It’s a vague donut that shows the silhouette of a black hole, with glowing material called accretion falling into it. flow.

Another research team is now using a network of 10 radio telescopes to take different images using longer wavelength radio emissions. They found a similar donut shape, but about 50% thicker than what they saw on the EHT.

“Frankly, I didn’t expect to see the ring with these observations, but I didn’t expect to see the outer part of the accretion flow,” said Keiichi Asada of Taiwan’s Academia Sinica. increase. The observation frequency for this series of telescopes is about one-third that of EHT, so the image should be about three times blurrier, researchers expected to smear the shadow of the central black hole.

Instead, the images showed the silhouette of a black hole, accretion streams, and jets emerging from the system. Simulations of the system showed two surprises. The jet’s base is wider than expected based on previous black hole jet models, and accretion appears to be causing unexpectedly strong winds.

These two phenomena may be related, but further observations and simulations are needed to confirm it. Exactly how matter behaves near black holes, including how these extraordinary jets are launched, has been a major problem in astrophysics for decades.

“Previously, we only had EHT to look very close to black holes, but now we have another tool,” says Asada. “Combining the information obtained at different frequencies will allow us to understand the accretion flow and innermost region of the jet, as well as the black hole itself.” There are already plans to observe M87* over a wider range of frequencies. Yes, researchers should be able to put together a “multicolor” image of the black hole and its strange surroundings.