Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2023

13 JULY-AUGUST 2023 ASTRO PUBLISHING from the Kyungpook National Uni- versity in South Korea and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astron- omy in Germany. The image was obtained with the GMVA, ALMA and the GLT, form- ing a network of radio-telescopes around the globe working together as a virtual Earth-sized telescope. Such a large network can discern very small details in the region around M87’s black hole. The new image shows the jet emerging near the black hole, as well as what scientists call the shadow of the black hole. As matter orbits the black hole, it heats up and emits light. The black hole bends and captures some of this light, creating a ring-like structure around the black hole as seen from Earth. The darkness at the centre of the ring is the black hole shadow, which was first imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) in 2017. Both this new image and the EHT one combine data taken with sev- eral radio-telescopes worldwide, but the image released shows radio light emitted at a longer wave- length than the EHT one: 3.5 mm instead of 1.3 mm. “At this wave- length, we can see how the jet emerges from the ring of emission around the central supermassive black hole,” says Thomas Krich- baum of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. S cientists observing the compact radio core of M87 have discovered new details about the galaxy’s supermassive black hole. In this artist’s conception, the black hole’s massive jet is seen rising up from the centre of the black hole. The observa- tions on which this illustration is based represent the first time that the jet and the black hole shadow have been imaged together, giving scientists new insights into how black holes can launch these powerful jets. [S. Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF)]