Chandra captures the clearest X-ray image ever of the M87 black hole’s jet

NASA’s Chandra This black hole is located about 55 million light-years away, within the Messier 87 galaxy. Weighing approximately 6.5 billion solar masses, this black hole feeds incoming material into jets thousands of light-years across, although the X-ray portion now shows it with this almost unreal intensity.

Inside the decade-long study

This discovery is Part of the research Made by Camille Poitras of Laval University and presented at the 248th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Over the course of 13 years of Chandra observations, researchers used point spread function deconvolution to improve the image resolution to less than 0.1 arcsecond, and were able to discern previously indistinguishable features, including two separate sources at the HST-1 node. The X-rays emitted by the jets decreased to a maximum of 84%, indicating cooling of the synchrotron. Simulations revealed that magnetic fields have strengths measured in the hundreds of microgauss.

Why does this discovery matter?

Team member Gerrit Shellenberger, an astrophysicist from the Center Astrophysicshighlight the unique power Chandra studied extreme events on a large time scale, showing the path of energy exiting the black hole along the flow and into the surroundings. Like airplanes Located in M87* It represents one of the main ways in which supermassive black holes pump energy into their surroundings, and studying their structure provides clues about the evolution of the galaxy. Comparison of X-ray, ALMA, JWST and Hubble Notes Useful in investigating particle acceleration within these highly relativistic planes.