Event Horizon Telescope: Black hole produces twisting jet
Related: Event Horizon Telescope imaging of the archetypal blazar 3C 279 at an extreme 20 microarcsecond resolution (Astronomy & Astrophysics)
______________________________________________________________________
Source: BBC
Event Horizon Telescope: Black hole produces twisting jet
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent
7 April 2020
One year on from publishing the first ever image of a black hole, the team behind that historic breakthrough is back with a new picture.
This time we're being shown the base of a colossal jet of excited gas, or plasma, screaming away from another black hole at near light-speed.
The scene was actually in the "background" of the original target.
The scientists who operate the Event Horizon Telescope describe the jet in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
They say their studies of the region of space known as 3C 279 will help them better understand the physics that drives behaviour in the vicinity of black holes.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52204614
The right-hand image was captured with a less powerful telescope. It shows the jet streaming away to the lower-right. In the new EHT image on the left, scientists can now see detail where the jet connects to the accretion disc. The supermassive black hole will be somewhere at the disc's centre (Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration)
______________________________________________________________________
Source: The Guardian
Scientists capture image of black hole emitting high-energy jets
Detailed image taken by Event Horizon Telescope of black hole 5bn light years away
Nicola Davis
@NicolaKSDavis
Tue 7 Apr 2020 14.00 BST
Last modified on Tue 7 Apr 2020 20.15 BST
An image of a huge, powerful jet of plasma powered by a supermassive black hole has been captured by researchers in unprecedented detail.
The team say the bright blob on the left of the image is thought to be the disc of gas and dust swirling around the black hole, with the jet of plasma depicted by a stream of less intense red features apparently emanating from it.
Experts say the jet is part a structure known as a blazar. These are formed from quasars – supermassive black holes which are actively sucking in material – that wind up magnetic fields as they spin, resulting in material from around the black hole being shot out in two jets, one of which points towards the Earth.
“A lot of that matter (around the black hole) is fated just to cross the event horizon and never return, but some of it can be launched along those powerful magnetic field lines which thread the black hole, and that is what the jet is,” said Dr Ziri Younsi of University College London, a co-author of the study.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/07/scientists-capture-image-of-black-hole-emitting-high-energy-jets