NASA X-ray spacecraft catches jet erupting from 1st supermassive black hole imaged by humanity

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Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray spacecraft have obtained the most detailed image yet of the jet erupting from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87).

If this black hole sounds familiar, that is because it made history in 2019 when it was revealed as the first black hole to be imaged by humanity.

M87* is located around 55 million light-years from Earth and is ravenously feeding on infalling gas and dust. As it does so, matter is channeled to the poles of this black hole, which has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the sun. This matter is blasted out at speeds approaching the speed of light as powerful jets that stretch out for thousands of light-years.

Jets of M87* have been imaged before in other wavelengths of light, such as optical light and infrared, but this is our most detailed look at these jets in X-rays. And the X-rays revealed a complex flow of material through the jets that's more dynamic than previously seen.

"We could already see changes in the jet, but never with this level of detail in X-rays," Camille Poitras, a Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Laval University and lead of the study, said in a statement. "Structures that previously appeared blended together can now be distinguished, allowing us to better follow the jet's evolution over more than a decade of observations."

Some structures in the jets appeared to be moving at speeds five times faster than the speed of light. Of course, that isn't possible; according to Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, nothing with mass can move at the speed of light or faster. This so-called superluminal motion isn't a universe-breaking discovery, but rather an optical illusion created when matter moves at near-light speed directly toward Earth.

The Chandra observations of the jet of M87* are a major step forward in understanding the physics of these outflows and how the particles that comprise them are accelerated to such high speeds and great energies. Additionally, because these jets are how supermassive black holes pour energy back into their surroundings, the observations could also help build a better picture of how these cosmic titans influence the evolution of their home galaxies.

"These results demonstrate how uniquely powerful Chandra remains for tracking the evolution of extreme phenomena over long timescales," team member Gerrit Schellenberger, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), said in the statement. "They help us better understand how energy released near a supermassive black hole is carried through its jet and deposited into the surrounding galaxy."

The team's research was presented at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The study is also available as a preprint on arXiv.

Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.

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