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Mind-blowing ‘world first’ images of black hole spewing out plasma 5.5BILLION lightyears away revealed
THE CLOSEST ever image of a violent jet spewing out of a supermassive black hole has been revealed.
The impressive picture has been brought to us by the same team who published the historic first image of a black hole last year.
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Jet streams shooting from black holes are thought to be made of excited gas or plasma.
The one in this image is thought to have been moving at almost the speed of light.
This scene, featuring a black hole at the top of the image, was actually in the background of the original target.
It was captured as the scientists studied an area in space known 3C 279.
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3C 279 is a region that experts refer to as a quasar.
A quasar is a very bright centre of a galaxy that emits a large amount of energy.
Some people suspect they are powered by supermassive black holes and may even represent an evolutionary stage in the formation of galaxies.
The black hole in the image above is located in a quasar 5.5billion light-years away from Earth.
The scientists observed it when they studied the region to learn more about the behaviour of space around black holes.
They actually did this back in April 2017 with the help of the Event Horizon Telescope.
This newly revealed black hole image surprised the team because they thought a jet coming from a black hole would be straight but this one seems to bend at the base.
It also has some features that can be seen perpendicular to the jet.
Jae-Young Kim, leader of the analysis, said: "We knew that every time you open a new window to the Universe you can find something new.
"Here, where we expected to find the region where the jet forms by going to the sharpest image possible, we find a kind of perpendicular structure.
"This is like finding a very different shape by opening the smallest Matryoshka [Russian nesting] doll.
This research has been published in .
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What is a black hole? The key facts
Here's what you need to know...
What is a black hole?
- A black hole is a region of space where absolutely nothing can escape
- That's because they have extremely strong gravitational effects, which means once something goes into a black hole, it can't come back out
- They get their name because even light can't escape once it's been sucked in – which is why a black hole is completely dark
What is an event horizon?
- There has to be a point at which you're so close to a black hole you can't escape
- Otherwise literally everything in the universe would have been sucked into one
- The point at which you can no longer escape from a black hole's gravitational pull is called the event horizon
- The event horizon varies between different black holes, depending on their mass and size
What is a singularity?
- The gravitational singularity is the very centre of a black hole
- It's a one-dimensional point that contains an incredibly large mass in an infinitely small space
- At the singularity, space-time curves infinitely and the gravitational pull is infinitely strong
- Conventional laws of physics stop applying at this point
How are black holes created?
- Most black holes are made when a supergiant star dies
- This happens when stars run out of fuel – like hydrogen – to burn, causing the star to collapse
- When this happens, gravity pulls the centre of the star inwards quickly, and collapses into a tiny ball
- It expands and contracts until one final collapse, causing part of the star to collapse inward thanks to gravity, and the rest of the star to explode outwards
- The remaining central ball is extremely dense, and if it's especially dense, you get a black hole
'Impossible' black hole that breaks 'current theory of universe' spotted
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In other space news, a huge 2-mile asteroid will be visible from Earth this month.
Nasa has revealed some of its plans for colonising the Moon.
If you've ever wanted to see a shooting star you stand a good chance this month.
What are your thoughts on black holes? Let us know in the comments...
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