Radio Telescopes Capture High Resolution Images Of Black Hole Jets
NASA has released images of the highest resolution images of jets of material being blasted away from the region near the center of the galaxy NGC-5128. Information about how the researchers generated the images can be found on NASA’s website here. Multiple Australian radio telescopes were involved in collecting the data that went to make up the high resolution images.
The giant elliptical galaxy NGC 5128 is the radio source known as Centaurus A. Vast radio-emitting lobes (shown as orange in this optical/radio composite) extend nearly a million light-years from the galaxy. Credit: Capella Observatory (optical), with radio data from Ilana Feain, Tim Cornwell, and Ron Ekers (CSIRO/ATNF), R. Morganti (ASTRON), and N. Junkes (MPIfR). Right: The radio image from the TANAMI project provides the sharpest-ever view of a supermassive black hole's jets. This view reveals the inner 4.16 light-years of the jet and counterjet, a span less than the distance between our sun and the nearest star. The image resolves details as small as 15 light-days across. Undetected between the jets is the galaxy's 55-million-solar-mass black hole. Credit: NASA/TANAMI/Müller et al.
As an aside, you can currently see the galaxy NGC-5128 high in our sky at present. It is quite a bright galaxy and can be seen with even a pair of binoculars from a dark sky location. The jet imaged in the above image can only be seen at radio wavelengths.
