Scientists trace a 3,000 light-year-long cosmic jet to the first black hole ever imaged

M87 is a supermassive black hole located in the Messier 87 galaxy about 55 light-years from Earth, and is 6.5 billion times larger than the Sun.

the First picture M87 was released to the public in 2019, after data was collected by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2017.

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A new study published this week revealed that scientists have tracked a 3,000-light-year-long cosmic stream flowing from the first black hole ever imaged to its source point with the help of “dramatically enhanced coverage” from the global Event Horizon Telescope. (Hubble Telescope/NASA)

Not only is the black hole supermassive, it’s also active, NASA’s Dr. Paddy Boyd explained in a video about the black hole’s discovery. “Only a small percentage are active at any given time. Are they turning on and off? That’s an idea… We know that there are very high magnetic fields that could launch a jet. So this image is observational evidence that what we’ve been seeing for a while is actually being launched by a jet attached to that supermassive black hole at the center of M87.”

M87 absorbs the gas and dust surrounding it and fires powerful jets of charged particles from its poles that form the jet stream, according to Scientific American and Space.com.

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“This study represents an early step toward linking theoretical ideas about aircraft launches with direct observations,” Saurabh, team leader at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, said in a statement. Space.com website.

The first image of the M87 black hole was taken by the Event Horizon telescope and revealed in 2019. (National Science Foundation via Getty Images)

“Determining where the jet might originate and how it connects to the black hole’s shadow adds a key piece to the puzzle and points to a better understanding of how the central engine works,” he added.

The Event Horizon Telescope includes a global network of eight radio observatories that can detect radio waves from astronomical objects such as galaxies and black holes that converge to form an Earth-sized telescope.

The elliptical galaxy M87 is home to several trillion stars, a supermassive black hole and a family of about 15,000 globular star clusters. (NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Legacy Team (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgments: B. Cote, Herzberg Institute for Astrophysics, and E. Baltz, Stanford University)

The “event horizon” refers to the boundaries of a black hole beyond which light cannot escape, according to the National Science Foundation.

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The results came after studying data from the Event Horizon telescope from 2021, but the study authors added: “Although this result is robust under the assumptions and tests performed, definitive confirmation and more precise constraints will require future EHT observations of higher sensitivity, improved mean baseline coverage across additional stations, and expanded bandwidth.”