The Event Horizon telescope was used by the scientists who discovered streams of plasma jets coming out of a gigantic black hole in a galaxy.
IN SPACE - APRIL 10: In this handout photo provided by the National Science Foundation, the Event Horizon Telescope captures a black hole at the center of galaxy M87, outlined by emission from hot gas swirling around it under the influence of strong gravity near its event horizon, in an image released on April 10, 2019. A network of eight radio observatories on six mountains and four continents, the EHT observed a black hole in Messier 87, a supergiant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo, on and off for 10 days in April of 2017 to make the image.
At the moment, the researchers have no idea where these gushing sources of energy come from. To solve that, there was research made to give light on how related the jets are to the black hole.
Astronomers Use Event Horizon Telescope to Spot Blackhole Jets
According to Business Insider on Thursday, July 22, the group behind the discovery of black hole jets has been successful in seeing the black hole in full detail a few years back.
The massive black hole, which is situated at the Centaurus A galaxy, showed a bursting wave of plasma jets.
When they scrutinized the image, the group announced some information about the jets. From what they observed, they could come in various sizes, which differ from their sources. A big jet might likely originate from a big black hole.
In an interview with Insider, a Radboud University-based astronomer and also the study's lead author, Michael Janssen, said that the plasma jets diffuse so that they could create big "bubbles" composed of hot gas.
In 2017, Janssen's team said that they had gathered information from eight radio telescopes.
The Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy member said that the same instance could be compared to a mirror broken into pieces. From each shard, we could see small details.
Over the past decade, another team also managed to capture the plasma jets in the Centaurus A. However, the images at that time were not that clear. The modern pictures displayed a more accurate and more vivid version of the images.
Janssen said that his team was able to magnify the image for 1 billion power.
Messier 87 Blackhole vs Centaurus A Blackhole
Two years ago, scientists had witnessed a unique image of the black hole in Messier 87.
According to those who saw the image, the appearance of the massive entity is similar to the eye of Sauron. The images of the black hole jets in the Centaurus A are much more accurate compared to the Messier 87 blackhole.
What they found out is that there was a shared activity between the black hole and the jets.
While they are different in size, the smaller black holes seem to come from their bigger versions. This also explains why their energy accumulation properties are deemed to be in the same way.
Read Also: Hubble Space Telescope Spots Image of Blackhole-Lit Spiral Galaxy
Why Plasma Jets Move Fast
A black hole can devour the things around it. Even the light cannot escape it.
According to Janssen, this statement will not mean that it could eat everything since other particles could still escape. This scenario is how the jets are formed.
Furthermore, the team concluded that the role of the magnetic fields in the emergence of jets is the way they transform them into high-speed jets.
In March, some members from the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration said that they have already evaluated the activity of the magnetic field in the Messier 87 blackhole.
Additionally, through the Event Horizon Telescope, the team has theorized that what helps the particles to escape the blackhole's strong gravitational pull is the strong magnetic field around it.
For more information, visit this study entitled "Event Horizon Telescope observations of the jet launching and collimation in Centaurus A" at Nature.com.
Related Article: Hubble Sees Black Hole Spitting Out 'Light Saber' Jet
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Written by Joseph Henry
