Universe  ID: 10987

Black Hole Snapshot

Story by Scott Wiessinger Released on June 28, 2012
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Telescopes look deep into a galaxy to snap a detailed view of a black hole's jets.
Although it seems improbable to use radio frequencies to see anything—let alone the high-speed particle jets of a supermassive black hole—astronomers have done just that. Using a global array of radio telescopes, a team including NASA-funded scientists has created a fine-resolution radio image that reveals the innermost jets at the center of galaxy Centaurus A, 12 million light-years from Earth. The detail in the image is equivalent to spotting a quarter from 5,000 miles away. As gases fall into the black hole at Centaurus A's core, the material gets accelerated outward, creating huge plumes of matter in a process not fully understood. Watch the video to see the vast size of the galaxy's plumes compared to the relative smallness of the black-hole-powered jet that created them.
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A journey deep into the galaxy shows material emanating from the black hole, which is 55 million times more massive than the sun.
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Nine radio telescopes, acting like a single telescope 6,200 miles across, worked in concert to capture this image of the inner jets (right).
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In visible light, the giant elliptical galaxy shows no sign of its active, supermassive black hole.
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Combining radio and optical wavelengths reveals huge plumes extending hundreds of thousands of light-years beyond the inner jets.
 

Related Story

Radio Telescopes Capture Best-Ever Snapshot of a Black Hole's Jets

For More Information

NASA.gov

Story Credits

Video Editor:
Scott Wiessinger (USRA)

Narrator:
Scott Wiessinger (USRA)

Producer:
Scott Wiessinger (USRA)

Lead Writer:
Scott Wiessinger (USRA)

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Radio telescope image of jets courtesy of NASA/TANAMI/Müller et al.
Visible light image courtesy of Capella Observatory
Optical/radio/visible image courtesy of Capella Observatory with radio data from Ilana Feain, Tim Cornwell, and Ron Ekers (CSIRO/ATNF), R. Morganti (ASTRON) and N. Junkes (MPIfR)

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Keywords:
DLESE >> Narrated
SVS >> App
NASA Science >> Universe