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'Totally unexpected': Stunning new imagery shows big changes in the 1st black hole ever captured by humanity (photo, vid
'Totally unexpected': Stunning new imagery shows big changes in the 1st black hole ever captured by humanity (photo, video)Newly released images of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy M87 show that the plasma that swirls around it has unexpectedly reversed directions.
Images of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy M87 taken by the Event Horizon Telescope, showing the shifting polarization of its magnetic field. (Image credit: EHT Collaboration)
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has captured stunning, newly revealed images of the supermassive black hole that lies at the heart of the galaxy M87. The EHT made this black hole, known as M87*, famous in April 2019 when it was revealed as the first black hole ever imaged by humanity.
These images of M87*, located around 55 million light-years from Earth, show that the polarization of the magnetic fields around the black hole reversed over a period of four years. The new observations of M87* also show the telltale signs of a jet of matter emerging from around the black hole, with its base connected to the bright ring around the outer boundary, or "event horizon," around M87*.
The images could help scientists further develop theories of how matter behaves in the extreme environments around supermassive black holes, which have masses of millions or even billions of suns and are found at the hearts of all large galaxies.
New images of M87* show the magnetic fields around the black hole swirling one way in 2017 then another in 2021. (Image credit: EHT collaboration)
"The fact that the polarization pattern flipped direction from 2017 to 2021 was totally unexpected," EHT team member Jongho Park, a researcher at Kyunghee University in South Korea, said in a statement. "It challenges our models and shows there’s much we still don’t understand near the event horizon."
More:
https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes/totally-unexpected-stunning-new-imagery-shows-big-changes-in-the-1st-black-hole-ever-captured-by-humanity-photo-video