Tag Archives: M87

Behold: the bright elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) – home to the supermassive black hole whose spectacular image was captured in 2019 by the Event Horizon Telescope – the first ever visual of its kind. To wit:

 Giant of the Virgo galaxy cluster about 55 million light-years away, M87 is the large galaxy rendered in blue hues in this infrared image from the Spitzer Space telescope. Though M87 appears mostly featureless and cloud-like, the Spitzer image does record details of relativistic jets blasting from the galaxy’s central region. Shown in the inset at top right, the jets themselves span thousands of light-years. The brighter jet seen on the right is approaching and close to our line of sight. Opposite, the shock created by the otherwise unseen receding jet lights up a fainter arc of material. Inset at bottom right, the historic black hole image is shown in context, at the center of giant galaxy and relativistic jets. Completely unresolved in the Spitzer image, the supermassive black hole surrounded by infalling material is the source of enormous energy driving the relativistic jets from the center of active galaxy M87.

(Image: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration)

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Behold: the central black hole of supergiant elliptical galaxy M87 (it’s a big one). To wit:

The featured image represents the detected intrinsic spin direction (polarization) of radio waves. The polarization is produced by the powerful magnetic field surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of elliptical galaxy M87. The radio waves were detected by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which combines data from radio telescopes distributed worldwide. The polarization structure, mapped using computer generated flow lines, is overlaid on EHT’s famous black hole image, first published in 2019. The full 3-D magnetic field is complex. Preliminary analyses indicate that parts of the field circle around the black hole along with the accreting matter, as expected. However, another component seemingly veers vertically away from the black hole. This component could explain how matter resists falling in and is instead launched into M87’s jet.

(Image: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration; Text: Jayanne English (U. Manitoba)

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