New black hole image reveals ‘most mysterious’ feature

Astronomers have unveiled the most detailed image of a black hole, one that revealed its “most mysterious” feature: the bright jets of energy that burn out for thousands of light years.

The new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration used polarized light – filtered out, similar to polarized sunglasses – to show the area around the black hole. And that, in turn, gave the most detailed view yet of those energy jets.

“Most cases lying near the edge of a black hole will collapse,” the collaboration said in a press release. “However, some of the surrounding grains escape moments before being captured and are blown far into space in the form of jets. ”

That leads to jets of energy and matter extending about 5,000 light-years from the center, as seen in the new image, the first ever detailed view of the area just outside the hole. black:

Janna Levin, an astronaut and professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College in Columbia University, who is not part of the EHT team, told the New York Times that the jets in the new image are indeed “deadly shotguns,” powerful, astronomical span of thousands of light years. ”

“The recently published polarized images are crucial in understanding how the magnetic field allows the black hole to ‘eat’ and launch powerful jets,” said a member. EHT collaborator Andrew Chael, who is NASA’s Hubble Fellow at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science press release.

Launched in 2009, the EHT collaboration is a multinational effort in which around 300 scientists use a worldwide network of radio telescopes to study black holes. Two years ago, the collaboration unveiled the ever-present image of a black hole, a fuzzy ring that captured the public’s imagination.

The new polarized image gives an even clearer view of the object at the center of the constellation Messier 87, or M87, about 55 million light-years away and in the Virgo constellation as seen from Earth:

The next step may be more than just an image.

“Even now we are designing the next generation EHT that will allow us to make the first black hole films,” Sheperd Doeleman, founding director of EHT Collaboration, said in a press release. “Keep an eye on the real black cinema.”