Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2021

12 MAY-JUNE 2021 ASTRO PUBLISHING the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarisation, a sig- nature of magnetic fields, this close to the edge of a black hole. The ob- servations are key to explaining how the M87 galaxy, located 55 million light-years away, is able to launch Magnetic fields at the edge of M87’s black hole imaged by ESO - Bárbara Ferreira T he Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, who pro- duced the first ever image of a black hole, revealed a new view of the massive object at the centre of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy: how it looks in polarised light. This is T his image shows the polarised view of the black hole in M87. The lines mark the orientation of po- larisation, which is related to the magnetic field around the shadow of the black hole. [EHT Collaboration]