A new image of a black hole reveals the "secret of violent phenomena"

 Scientists have revealed a new image of a black hole, which is the first to show the violent events that take place around one of these important cosmic phenomena, as it shows the massive emanation of high-energy particles into space.

Scientists obtained the new image, which is one of the first to capture black holes, using 16 telescopes at different locations on Earth that together formed a planet-sized observing dish. The supermassive black hole, whose image was taken, is located at the center of a relatively nearby galaxy, "Messier 87", or "M87", approximately 54 million light-years from Earth.

The black hole itself, which has a mass of 6.5 billion times the mass of our sun, also appeared in the first ever image of that cosmic phenomenon, which was unveiled in 2019, and one was taken of another black hole last year.

The two images, which show only the darkness of the black hole and a ring of bright material surrounding it, and the new image, all came from observations made using many radio telescopes located around the world, but the newer image shows light emitted at a greater wavelength, which expands what can be seen. .

Black holes are difficult to spot by their very nature, as they are an entity with such a huge pull that no matter or even light can escape from once they fall into their gravitational pull. 

Supermassive black holes reside in the centers of most galaxies, and some not only devour any surrounding material but also shoot huge, fiery jets of high-energy particles far into space. The new image shows how the base of these jets connects with matter orbiting the black hole in a ring-like formation.

Scholars' comments

• Astrophysicist Ru Sen Lu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, who is the principal investigator of the study published in the journal "Nature", said that the image shows for the first time the connection between the flow of "material drawn inward near the supermassive black hole, and the source of the eruption." .

• Study co-author astrophysicist Thomas Kretschbaum of the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy in Germany added: "This helps in better understanding the complex physics of black holes, how jets are launched and accelerated, and how matter flowing into the black hole is related to that emanating from it."

• "This is what astronomers and astrophysicists have been waiting to see for more than half a century. It's the dawn of an exciting new age," said co-author Kazunori Akiyama of MIT's Haystack Observatory, co-author of the study.

• The three scientists are members of the Event Horizon Telescope project, an international collaboration that began in 2012 with the aim of observing the immediate surroundings of black holes.