New black hole image reveals mysteries of its powerful jets

1 year ago
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Pictures of the first black hole ever to be imaged are back in the news, and this time it’s doing… something. The supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy M87 isn’t just a black void, or a black void with a bright ring about it, but actually a black void with a bright ring around it and two gargantuan jets of radiation shooting out of its poles. Now, scientists cooperating around the world have produced this image of the entire black hole and one of those jets, using the same global network of linked telescopes.

As matter orbits and falls into the black hole, it accelerates, eventually being pulled so fast it glows white hot. But, like a tornado forming from a spinning column of air, this now highly radioactive matter can shoot out at right angles to the spin, creating huge jets. Until now, this theory was little more than fancy math and the occasional radio signal from space threatening to kill us, but these images actually show the jets emerging from the spinning ring of fiery matter (also called the accretion disk). The scientists hope that they can now study exactly how this black hole devours matter, and, perhaps more importantly, why it has mysteriously enlarged in the last two years. We would have mentioned that first, but we didn’t want to alarm you.

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