A Peek at Swirling Matter in a Black Hole (3 of 4) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

A Peek at Swirling Matter in a Black Hole (3 of 4)

Caption

This shows simulated event horizon-resolving images for the ultra-relativistic jet launched from the 7 billion solar mass black hole at the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87. Each snapshot shows a jet model associated with a different black hole spin, ranging from 0.5 to 0.99 times the theoretical maximum. Note the presence of the shadow cast by the black hole at the center of the image, corresponding approximately to the size constraint implied by recent interferometric observations at millimeter wavelengths. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the September 27, 2012, issue of Science Express, published by AAAS. The paper, by Shepherd Doeleman at MIT Haystack Observatory in Westford, Mass., and colleagues was titled, “Jet Launching Structure Resolved Near the Supermassive Black Hole in M87.”

Credit

[Image courtesy of Avery E. Broderick (University of Waterloo/Perimeter Institute)]

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