in april of 2019 scientists working for
the event horizon telescope
collaboration stunned the world
when they released the first ever
picture of a black hole
this photo of the supermassive black
hole at the heart of the galaxy called
m87 has since become iconic but the
scientists from the eht
were not finished yet and after almost
two years of pouring over their data
they've released a new version of their
famous photo
one that could help solve a major
mystery about black holes
the mystery involves jets of matter that
supermass black holes can
launch off into space at nearly the
speed of light the galaxy m87
has a black hole at its center with just
such a jet one that extends for at least
5 000 light years nearly two decades
before the eht's iconic image the hubble
space telescope captured another
jaw-dropping picture of m87 that clearly
showed this
jet spearing its way across the cosmos
the blue tinted beam is as stunning
as it is puzzling after all if there's
one thing black holes are known for
it's their insatiable appetite anything
that strays too close and crosses a
threshold known as the event horizon
gets sucked in by the black hole's
inescapable gravity
even light traveling as fast as anything
in the universe can go
can't break free matter far enough
outside the event horizon
can form an accretion disk that glows
extremely brightly
as it swirls around most matter just
outside the edge of the black hole
eventually falls in but some of it
doesn't
instead moments before falling into the
jaws of crushing doom
it gets shot off in that spectacular jet
when the eht first imaged n87
supermassive black hole back in 2019
scientists thought the jet was created
when the black hole spin
interacted with its magnetic field but
they didn't have
any proof this updated image hints at
that proof
upon closer examination of their data
the scientists discovered that a lot of
the light around the black hole
is polarized meaning the photons are
vibrating in the same plane
light can become polarized in several
ways like when it's passed through a
filter
in this case when light is emitted by
plasma in a magnetic field
the field orders the plasma and acts as
a filter that aligns the photons
vibrations
using this new information the
astronomers could map the magnetic field
lines
at the edge of the black hole for the
first time ever
understanding the magnetic field could
provide the answer to how black holes
can swallow
some matter while ejecting other matter
into space
scientists have used different models to
explain how the gas around the black
hole behaves
and the new data suggests the models
with a stronger magnetic field
are more likely accurate a strong
magnetic field would account for the
observed behavior
where much of the matter in the ring
around the black hole resists since pull
in fact because of this work scientists
were able to estimate
just how fast the black hole is eating
even though it has a mass
of 6.5 billion suns it's only absorbing
1 000th of a solar mass per year
astronomers also published images of the
polarized light in
m87s jet which helped them map the
magnetic field lines in this
spray of matter taken altogether these
images can help astronomers understand
exactly how the magnetic field interacts
with matter from the event horizon
all the way through the jet there's
still much more to come from the event
horizon telescope which is not one
single observatory
but it's actually made up of several
observatories around the world
working together in its current state
it's powerful enough to spot something
the size of a credit card
on the surface of the moon but it's
going to get even
better the network that connects the
various telescopes is being upgraded
and more observatories are joining the
effort with more power at their disposal
the scientists predict they'll be able
to create a moving image of
m87 supermassive black hole to get a
clear understanding of what's happening
soon if we're lucky we'll see this
photogenic cosmic wonder
in motion this photo is the gift that
keeps on giving like when researchers
revealed the photon ring
hidden within it to learn more about the
photon ring check out my video on it
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thanks for watching and i'll see you
next time on seeker