Matter Skirts Supermassive Black Hole Before Jetting Away
Powerful flares from the heart of the galaxy M87 show that matter can flirt with oblivion before plowing toward intergalactic space at almost the speed of light.
A long jet squirts away from the core of M87 in this Hubble Space Telescope image. [NASA/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)]
An international team of astronomers detected several gamma-ray flares followed by months-long increases in radio waves from the core of M87. From the location of the flares, the energy levels, and other data, the astronomers calculated that the flares originated just outside the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center.
A disk of superhot gas orbits the black hole, which is bigger than our solar system. As it spirals closer to the black hole, the matter is heated to millions or billions of degrees. Although scientists are unsure of the exact mechanism, powerful magnetic fields capture some of this matter shortly before it passes through the black hole’s event horizon — the boundary beyond which nothing can escape. The magnetic fields fling the super-heated gas back into space at almost the speed of light, forming a “jet” that can stretch across millions of light-years.
Although astronomers have observed similar effects in other galaxies, this is the first time they have detected matter dipping so close to the event horizon. The observations were made with the VERITAS, MAGIC, and HESS gamma-ray telescopes, and the continent-spanning VLBA radio telescope.
M87 is about 50 million light-years away. It is several times larger and more massive than our home galaxy, the Milky Way. According to recent models by a team headed by Texas astronomer Karl Gebhardt, its central black hole is six billion to seven billion times as massive as the Sun — about 2,000 times the mass of the Milky Way’s central black hole. — Damond Benningfield
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