MADRID/VALENCIA, 26 Apr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
New observations of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy M87 have revealed the origins of its powerful jet and imaged it and its origin together for the first time.
An international scientific team -with the participation of the Yebes Observatory (IGN-MITMA) and the University of Valencia– has obtained new data that provide an unprecedented view of the famous black hole of M87, whose first image was published by Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) in 2019. This time, they allow us to see, in addition to the central shadow, the birth of the jet of energetic particles that emanates from said region at speeds close to that of light.
The new observations, obtained with the Global Millimeter VLBI Array (GMVA), combined with the Atacama Large mm/submm Array (ALMA) and the new Greenland Telescope (GLT), show how this energetic jet is formed from falling material. to the supermassive black hole, at the heart of M87. The results are published in the current issue of the journal ‘Nature’, informs the Valencian academic institution.
“Until now, we only had separate images of the central black hole and its jet. However, this time we have achieved an image of the entire system, sharp enough to finally see the nexus between the black hole and the jet.” Ru-Sen Lu, a researcher at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, who is leading the study, says in a statement.
Eduardo Ros, astronomer and scientific coordinator for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy added: “We’ve seen the ring before, but now we see the jet. This puts the ring in context, and it’s more big than we thought. If you think of it as a fire-breathing monster, before we could see the dragon and fire, but now we can see the fire-breathing dragon.”
The new image, with a sharpness that would make it possible to distinguish a soccer ball from the Moon, provides remarkable information about this black hole. For example, it can be deduced that the rate at which it is swallowing matter, coming from the disk that surrounds it, is very low.
In addition, the shape that the jet takes right at its nexus with the black hole is wider than expected, according to the General Relativity models that we currently have.
“We could be seeing the effect of plasma winds around the hole, which would deform the jet and affect its propagation”, declares Iván Martí-Vidal, professor at the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Valencia and co-author of the work. However, further observations will be needed to robustly test this hypothesis.
The Spanish contribution in this work has been fundamental, both at the level of instrumentation and algorithms. On the one hand, “with the Yebes radio telescope, one of the largest in the GMVA, we have contributed to significantly improving the sensitivity and fidelity of these observations”, points out Pablo de Vicente, director of the Yebes Observatory (IGN-MITMA ) that participates in the discovery.
The 30m Spanish-French-German radio telescope of the Millimeter Radio Astronomy Institute, located in the province of Granada, of which the National Geographic Institute is a member, has also participated in this observation. This radio telescope, like the 40m radio telescope, is a regular member of the GMVA network and has been crucial in obtaining these results.
On the other hand, “to obtain this image, the role of the ALMA and GLT telescopes has also been crucial, and it is thanks to the algorithms developed at the University of Valencia that we have been able to use all this data in a robust way”, points out Iván Martí -Vidal.
The new image of M87 represents an important advance in the understanding of supermassive black holes, some of the most exotic objects in the known Universe. “In the near future, it will be possible to make observations at different frequencies simultaneously, which will allow us to study black holes of similar sizes, but located at greater distances than M87,” adds Javier González, an engineer at the Yebes Observatory and co -signer of the work. “The best is yet to come,” he predicts.
Furthermore, observations of this SMBH have revealed that the black hole’s ring is much larger than scientists previously believed. Observations published today in Nature.
The SMBH at the center of the galaxy M87 is the most recognizable in the Universe. It was the first black hole captured in an image, created by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) and made public in 2019. The image of its dark, dense core framed by a bright amorphous ring made international headlines.
Using many different telescopes and instruments gave the team a more complete view of the structure of the supermassive black hole and its jet than was previously possible with EHT, requiring all telescopes to paint a complete picture. While VLBA provided a complete view of both the jet and the black hole, ALMA enabled scientists to resolve M87’s bright radio nucleus and create a sharp image. The sensitivity of the GBT’s 100-meter collecting surface allowed astronomers to resolve both large- and small-scale parts of the ring and see the finer details.
“The original EHT image revealed only a part of the accretion disk surrounding the center of the black hole. By changing the observation wavelengths from 1.3 millimeters to 3.5 millimeters, we can see more of the accretion disk, and now the jet, at the same time. This revealed that the ring around the black hole is 50 percent larger than we previously believed,” says scientist Toney Minter, GMVA coordinator for GBT.
The parts of the black hole are not only larger than previously revealed shorter-wavelength observations, but it is now possible to confirm the origin of the jet. This jet was born from the energy created by the magnetic fields surrounding the black hole’s spinning core and winds rising from the black hole’s accretion disk.
“These results showed, for the first time, where the jet is forming. Before this, there were two theories about its origin,” Minter said. “But this observation actually showed that the energy from the magnetic fields and the winds are working together.”
Harshal Gupta, NSF Program Officer for Green Bank Observatory, added: “This discovery is a powerful demonstration of how telescopes possessing complementary capabilities can be used to fundamentally advance our understanding of astronomical objects and phenomena. It is exciting to see that the different types of NSF-supported radio telescopes work synergistically as important elements of the GMVA to allow an overview of the M87 black hole and jet.”
