Since the 1970s, astronomers have observed that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) reside at the centers of most massive galaxies. In some cases, these black holes accelerate gas and dust from their poles, forming relativistic jets that can extend for thousands of light-years. Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers observed the jet emanating from the center of M87, the supermassive galaxy located 53.5 million light-years away. To their surprise, the team observed nova erupting along the jet’s trajectory, twice as many as they observed in M87 itself.
Continue reading “Jets From Supermassive Black Holes Create New Stars Along Their Trajectory”Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope To Unlock Mysteries of Black Holes
The prospect of actually resolving the event horizon of black holes feels like the stuff of science fiction yet it is a reality. Already the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has resolved the horizon of the black holes at the centre of the Milky Way and M87. A team of astronomers are now looking to the next generation of the EHT which will work at multiple frequencies with more telescopes than EHT. A new paper suggests it may even be possible to capture the ring where light goes into orbit around the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.
Continue reading “Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope To Unlock Mysteries of Black Holes”What’s Next for the Event Horizon Telescope? Twelve Possible New Targets
Both the Milky Way and a galaxy known as M87 have supermassive black holes at their core. These are the two largest black holes we know about and the Event Horizon Telescope has just captured stunning images of their event horizons. A new paper looks at what we might expect from a next generation EHT and highlights twelve targets that should be top of the list.
Continue reading “What’s Next for the Event Horizon Telescope? Twelve Possible New Targets”M87's Jet is Triggering Novae
Everyone loves a good mystery, and astronomers have just uncovered a new one in a nearby supermassive galaxy called M87. Like most galaxies, M87 regularly plays host to a smattering of stellar explosions called novae, each the result of a star stealing material from a neighbour. M87 also features a massive jet of plasma blasting out into deep space from the galactic core. These phenomena: the jet and the novae, are unrelated astronomical occurrences, or so scientists believed. But astronomers recently discovered that the novae in M87 seem to be uncharacteristically aligned along the jet, instead of scattered randomly throughout the galaxy. Is the jet somehow triggering nova explosions?
It might be, but the mystery is: how?
Continue reading “M87's Jet is Triggering Novae”M87’s Supermassive Black Hole is Spewing out a Spiraling jet of Material
Patterns in nature often occur in more than one place. Spirals, symmetry, and chaos all impact natural phenomena, from the shape of a shell to the course of a river. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that one of the most famous and fundamental shapes from biology also appears in astrophysics. Yes, scientists have found a double-helix structure in the magnetic field of M87. And it looks just like a super enlarged DNA strand.
Continue reading “M87’s Supermassive Black Hole is Spewing out a Spiraling jet of Material”The Event Horizon Telescope Zooms in on Another Supermassive Black Hole
On April 10th, 2019, the world was treated to the first image of a black hole, courtesy of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Specifically, the image was of the Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) at the center of the supergiant elliptical galaxy known as M87 (aka. Virgo A). These powerful forces of nature are found at the centers of most massive galaxies, which include the Milky Way (where the SMBH known as Sagittarius A* is located).
Using a technique known as Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), this image signaled the birth of a new era for astronomers, where they can finally conduct detailed studies of these powerful forces of nature. Thanks to research performed by the EHT Collaboration team during a six-hour observation period in 2017, astronomers are now being treated to images of the core region of Centaurus A and the radio jet emanating from it.
Continue reading “The Event Horizon Telescope Zooms in on Another Supermassive Black Hole”A Galaxy is Making New Stars Faster Than its Black Hole Can Starve Them for Fuel
A monster lurks at the heart of many galaxies – even our own Milky Way. This monster possesses the mass of millions or billions of Suns. Immense gravity shrouds it within a dark cocoon of space and time – a supermassive black hole. But while hidden in darkness and difficult to observe, black holes can also shine brighter than an entire galaxy. When feeding, these sleeping monsters awaken transforming into a quasar – one of the Universe’s most luminous objects. The energy a quasar radiates into space is so powerful, it can interfere with star formation for thousands of light years across their host galaxies. But one galaxy appears to be winning a struggle against its awoken blazing monster and in a recent paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers are trying to determine how this galaxy survives.
Continue reading “A Galaxy is Making New Stars Faster Than its Black Hole Can Starve Them for Fuel”M87’s Black Hole is Firing Out Jets that Travel 99% the Speed of Light
Can black holes be famous? If they can, then the one at the heart of the M87 galaxy qualifies. And this famous black hole is emitting jets of material that travel at near the speed of light.
Continue reading “M87’s Black Hole is Firing Out Jets that Travel 99% the Speed of Light”New Technique for Estimating the Mass of a Black Hole
Black holes are the one the most intriguing and awe-inspiring forces of nature. They are also one of the most mysterious because of the way the rules of conventional physics break down in their presence. Despite decades of research and observations there is still much we don’t know about them. In fact, until recently, astronomers had never seen an image of black hole and were unable to guage their mass.
However, a team of physicist from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) recently announced that they had devised a way to indirectly measure the mass of a black hole while also confirming its existence. In a recent study, they showed how they tested this method on the recently-imaged supermassive black hole at the center of the Messier 87 active galaxy.
Continue reading “New Technique for Estimating the Mass of a Black Hole”Ep. 526: Event Horizon Telescope and the Black Hole at M87
Today, of course, we’re going to talk about the announcement from the Event Horizon Telescope and the first photograph of a black hole’s event horizon.
Continue reading “Ep. 526: Event Horizon Telescope and the Black Hole at M87”