New images from the James Webb Telescope have captured never-before-seen details of the gargantuan jets shooting out from the famous black hole M87* — the first ever black hole to be directly imaged by the Event Horizon telescope.
New images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), published September 22 in the journal Astronomy and astrophysicsalso revealed the clearest views yet of the massive counterjet ricocheting through space in the opposite direction, the study authors found.
Although jets from supermassive black holes are quite common, “the M87 jet is special in the sense that it is quite close (on an astronomical scale) and very bright across the spectrum,” co-author of the study. Jan Roderastrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Spain, told Live Science in an email. This makes it “an ideal laboratory for studying jet physics,” he said.
The M87* black hole is a supermassive black hole with a mass equivalent to approximately 6.5 billion suns. It is the first black hole to be directly imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope – an array of eight globally linked radio telescopes – in 2019.
The black hole and its jets have been frequently studied since then, with recent research revealing that the cosmic monster is spinning at nearly 80% of the cosmic speed limitand that the magnetic fields surrounding the black hole have changed radically in just a few years.
Previous research has taken a look at the jet using various electromagnetic wavelengthsincluding radio waves, visible light, ultraviolet rays, x-rays and gamma rays. But its structure on the infrared scale, which Röder says is essential for connecting radio and visible light images, was unknown.
Now, Röder and his team used infrared images of M87 taken in June 2024 by JWST. Near infrared camera (NIRCam) to study the jet like never before. First, the team isolated the jet in the images by modeling the galaxy and then eliminating its light emissions; as well as any additional stars, dust and background galaxies. They then used these cleaned images to identify all the individual features of the jet at four wavelengths of infrared light.
The two shorter wavelength images were of particularly high definition and captured one of the brightest sections of the jet, called HST-1, near the galaxy’s core. Previous research has modeled HST-1 using x-ray data and discovered that it was composed of two light-emitting regions. These images are the first direct observations confirming this structure, Röder said.
The two longer wavelength images show a weak C-shaped counterjet shooting out from the core in the opposite direction to the main jet. Although the counterjet also appears in the radio photos, Röder said the clarity achieved in the infrared images was “very exciting.”
Continuing to take photos at different wavelengths will help scientists understand how the jet interacts with its cosmic environment and what the jet and its opposite are made of. “With each new observation, we get closer to the complete picture,” Röder added.