Study concerns Messier 87 galaxy, 55m light years away from Earth, and a black hole 6.5bn times more massive than the sun
Astronomers have captured the first image showing a powerful jet being launched from the edge of a black hole’s event horizon into intergalactic space.
“We know that jets are ejected from the region surrounding black holes, but we still do not fully understand how this actually happens,” said Dr Ru-Sen Lu, the lead author of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory. Most galaxies harbour a supermassive black hole at their centre and these objects act as galactic sinkholes, permanently swallowing anything that drifts over their event horizon. Many black holes also launch powerful jets of matter from their poles at close to the speed of light.
Scientists think the jets are powered by the rotation of the black hole. However, it is not clear exactly where the jets emanate from. Theory suggests they could be anchored close to the event horizon, the so-called point of no return, or just outside it in the Ergoregion, a zone in which space-time itself co-rotates with the black hole., shows the base of the jet connecting with the matter swirling around a supermassive black hole, although it does not pinpoint precisely the origin.
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