World's First Successful Photograph of the Black Hole "Jet"

Four years ago, we succeeded in photographing the outline for the first time, and this is a new research result on black holes, which attracted worldwide attention.

An international research group including Japan has succeeded for the first time in the world in photographing the connection between a ring of hot gas attracted to a huge black hole at the center of a galaxy and a "jet" in which gas spews out at high speed.

It is attracting attention as a clue to elucidate the mechanism by which massive black holes are formed.

International research groups from Japan, Germany, Taiwan and other countries have connected 5500 radio telescopes around the world to observe the direction of a black hole at the center of a galaxy called M87 in the constellation Virgo, 16 million light-years away from Earth.

As a result, they succeeded for the first time in the world in photographing the connection between a ring called an "accretion disk," which is formed by high-temperature gas attracted by the extremely strong gravity of a black hole, and the base of a gas that is ejected at a speed close to light, called a "jet."

The image shows jets erupting from two locations, one on the south and one on the north side of the accretion disk.

The accretion disk and jet are thought to exist with the black hole at the center of the galaxy, but they were not shown four years ago when another group first photographed and published the outline of the same black hole.

This time, in addition to using radio waves of different frequencies, the number of telescopes was increased to simultaneously observe a wider area.

The fact that a black hole that absorbs even light creates a "jet" is considered to be one of the greatest mysteries of astronomy, and it is attracting attention as a clue to the formation of a huge black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, where the solar system is located.

Assistant Professor Kazuhiro Hata of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), a member of the international research team, said, "I believe this is one of the achievements that will mark a new page in the history of black hole research.