EHT collaboration (Event Horizon Telescope), which produced the first image of a black hole, revealed the object’s magnetic field at the center of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy.
The bright jets of energy and matter that emerge from the core of the M87 and that span at least 5,000 light years from its center are one of the most mysterious and energetic features in the galaxy 55 million light years away.
Most of the matter that is near the edge of a black hole falls. However, some of the surrounding particles escape moments before capture and are launched into space. in the form of jets.
Astronomers have relied on different models of how matter behaves near the black hole to better understand this process. However, they do not yet know exactly how jets larger than the galaxy are launched from their central region, which is as small as the Solar System, or how matter falls into the black hole.
To observe the M87 galaxy, the collaboration linked eight telescopes around the world to create an Earth-sized virtual telescope – the EHT. The resolution obtained with the EHT is equivalent to that required to measure the length of a credit card on the surface of the Moon.
With the new image of the black hole and its shadow in polarized light, astronomers managed, for the first time, look at the region outside the black hole where this interaction between the matter to flow and to be ejected takes place.
This configuration allowed the team directly observe the shadow of the black hole it’s the ring of light around you, with the new image of polarized light showing that the ring is magnetized.
The observations provide new information about the structure of magnetic fields outside the black hole. The team found that only theoretical models with strongly magnetized gas can explain what they are seeing on the event horizon.
“Observations suggest that the magnetic fields at the edge of the black hole are strong enough to push the gas hot and help you resist the pull of gravity. Only the gas that flows through the field can spiral into the event horizon ”, explained Jason Dexterteacher University of Colorado and coordinator of EHT Theory Working Group, in release.
“EHT is making rapid advances, with technological updates being made on the network and new observatories being added. We hope that future EHT observations will more accurately reveal the magnetic field structure around the black hole and tell us more about the physics of hot gas in this region ”, concluded Jongho Park, member of the EHT collaboration and the East Asian Observatory Association at the Academy’s Sinica Astronomy and Astrophysics Institute in Taipei.
This study will be published this week in the scientific journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The investigation involved more than 300 researchers from various organizations and universities around the world, including the Portuguese Hugo Messias, a collaborator at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences.
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