The stunning image was obtained thanks to the international Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) initiative that brought together a total of eight telescopes around the world.
The astronomers who took the first image of a black hole managed to capture the light from its magnetic fields, an important step in better understanding the dynamics of these cosmic phenomena, a study published Wednesday shows.
On April 10, 2019, the image went around the world: it was a dark circle in the center of a glowing disk, corresponding to a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87), located 55 million light years away. from the earth.
Obtained thanks to the international initiative Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) that brought together a total of eight telescopes in the world, the image was the most direct evidence of the existence of these phenomena, so large and compact that they absorb everything, including light.
Two years later, EHT scientists know more about the mechanics of this black hole, whose mass is billions of times that of the sun.
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In an article published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, they released a new image of the object under polarized light – as if through a filter – giving “a better understanding of the physics behind the April 2019 image,” emphasized the Spanish Iván Martí-Vidal, coordinator of the EHT working groups and researcher at the University of Valencia.
“We have observed the reality of what the theoretical models predicted, it is incredibly satisfying!” Congratulated Frédéric Gueth, deputy director of the Institute of Millimeter Radio Astronomy in France, whose 30-meter telescope in Spain’s Sierra Nevada is part of the EHT network.
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The polarization proved the structure of the magnetic field at the edges of the black hole and made it possible to produce an accurate image of its shape, similar to a whirlwind of filaments.
This extraordinarily powerful magnetic field resists the black hole’s gravity: “There is a kind of equilibrium between the two forces, as if it were a battle, although gravity wins in the end,” Gueth explained to AFP.
“The magnetic field at the edge of the black hole is powerful enough to push back the hot gas and help it resist gravity,” explains Jason Dexter of the University of Colorado in Boulder, USA.
While there is no matter that can leave the black hole once swallowed, the cosmic object does not “swallow 100% of everything in its environment: some of it escapes,” said Gueth.
The magnetic force would make it possible not only to extract the matter, but also to expel very powerful rays at immense speeds, which can travel thousands of light years.
These energy beams come from the core of M87 and are one of the “most mysterious phenomena in this galaxy,” according to the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
The interaction of forces revealed by the EHT would also exist in all black holes, from the smallest to the supermassive, present in most galaxies, including the Milky Way.
Since there is no “information” coming from black holes, science will never be able to detect them directly. “What happens inside remains a mystery. The key is to understand what is going on around us, because it is necessarily related, ”Gheth concludes.
The EHT Network’s annual simultaneous observation session, canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic, will resume at the end of April. The integration of new telescopes, including the NOEMA observatory in France, will improve the precision of the images obtained.