The Universe is full of strangeness. Some quite unique. This is the case with the black hole, an entity that intrigues specialists. Here is a breathtaking image.
In the Universe, there are celestial bodies that are well known, or at least relatively well understood, and others which still retain a great deal of mystery. This is the case of black hole. If scientists agree on the main lines, there are still many questions. And the answers are difficult to obtain as the “beast” is so difficult to observe.
A black hole like you’ve never seen
It took a long, long time before we could capture the first real image of a black hole, but it only took a few years to get more. The New York Times reports that researchers at the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) have released the most detailed image of a black hole to date.
The above snapshot in question of the Messier 87 galaxy black hole shows it in polarized light for the very first time, perfectly illustrating how magnetic fields – visible through the lines you can see – behave at the edges of this. cosmic phenomenon.
This is the most detailed image to date
These new visuals suggest that these magnetic fields are strong enough to offer resistance to the highly magnetized gases present on the event horizon, thereby helping some of these gases escape the enormous gravity of the black hole itself.
The gas has to sneak between these fields to fall into the hole, according to Jason Dexter of the University of Colorado. The pictures also suggest that the jet draws its power from the rotational energy of the black hole, according to Michael Johnson, contributor to the Event Horizon project.
These data also allow scientists to estimate that this black hole is relatively small – it consumes “only” a thousandth of the mass of our Sun each year.
Still, we should have more information, and clichés in the near future. Although the EHT’s global telescope combination is limited, a future version may be able to produce videos of all this magnetic activity.
This could help show how magnetic fields extract energy from the black hole and who knows, maybe we can finally unravel the mysteries of this strange cosmic phenomenon.