The galaxy M87, imaged here by
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, is home to a supermassive black hole
that spews two jets of material out into space at nearly the speed of
light. The inset shows a close-up view of the shockwaves created by the
two jets.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPAC. Full image and caption
The galaxy M87 looks like a hazy,
blue space-puff in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. At
the galaxy's center is a supermassive black hole that spews two jets of
material out into space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPAC. Hi-res image
This wide-field image of the galaxy M87 was taken by NASA's Spitzer
Space Telescope. The top inset shows a close-up of two shockwaves,
created by a jet emanating from the galaxy's supermassive black hole.
The Event Horizon Telescope recently took a close-up image of the
silhouette of that black hole, show in the second inset.Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. Hi-res image
On April 10, 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) unveiled
the first-ever image of a black hole's event horizon, the area
beyond which light cannot escape the immense gravity of the black hole. That giant
black hole, with a mass of 6.5 billion Suns, is located in the elliptical
galaxy Messier 87 (M87). EHT is an international collaboration whose support in
the U.S. includes the National Science Foundation.
This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the
entire M87 galaxy in infrared light. The EHT image, by contrast, relied on
light in radio wavelengths and showed the black hole's shadow against the
backdrop of high-energy material around it.
Located about 55 million light-years from Earth, M87 has
been a subject of astronomical study for more than 100 years and has been
imaged by many NASA observatories, including the Hubble Space
Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory
and NuSTAR.
In 1918, astronomer Heber Curtis first noticed "a curious straight
ray" extending from the galaxy's center. This bright jet of high-energy
material, produced by a disk of material spinning rapidly around the black hole,
is visible in multiple wavelengths of light, from radio waves through X-rays. When
the particles in the jet impact the interstellar medium (the sparse material
filling the space between stars in M87), they create a shockwave that radiates
in infrared and radio wavelengths of light but not visible light. In the
Spitzer image, the shockwave is more prominent than the jet itself.
The brighter jet, located to the right of the galaxy's
center, is traveling almost directly toward Earth. Its brightness is amplified
due to its high speed in our direction, but even more so because of what
scientists call "relativistic effects," which arise because the
material in the jet is traveling near the speed of light. The jet's trajectory
is just slightly offset from our line of sight with respect to the galaxy, so we
can still see some of the length of the jet. The shockwave begins around the
point where the jet appears to curve down, highlighting the regions where the
fast-moving particles are colliding with gas in the galaxy and slowing down.
The second jet, by contrast, is moving so rapidly away from
us that the relativistic effects render it invisible at all wavelengths. But
the shockwave it creates in the interstellar medium can still be seen here.
Located on the left side of the galaxy's center, the
shockwave looks like an inverted letter "C." While not visible in
optical images, the lobe can also be seen in radio waves, as in this image
from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array.
By combining observations in the infrared, radio waves,
visible light, X-rays and extremely energetic gamma rays, scientists can study
the physics of these powerful jets. Scientists are still striving for a solid
theoretical understanding of how gas being pulled into black holes creates
outflowing jets.
Infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.5 microns are rendered
in blue and green, showing the distribution of stars, while dust features that
glow brightly at 8.0 microns are shown in red. The image was taken during
Spitzer's initial "cold" mission.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,
manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer
Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena. Space operations are based at Lockheed
Martin Space Systems in Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared
Science Archive housed at IPAC at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
More information on Spitzer can be found at its website: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/
News Media Contact
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
Source: JPL-Caltech/News
