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Back Close-up Look at a Jet near a Black Hole in Galaxy M87 (Hubble and Ground-Based View)

Close-up Look at a Jet near a Black Hole in Galaxy M87 (Hubble and Ground-Based View)


Depicts: M87, IRAS 12282+1240, NGC 4486, the Virgo Cluster A, the Virgo Galaxy
Copyright: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, STScI

Space Telescope Science Institute astronomers and their co-investigators have gained their first glimpse of the mysterious region near a black hole at the heart of a distant galaxy, where a powerful stream of subatomic particles spewing outward at nearly the speed of light is formed into a beam, or jet, that then goes nearly straight for thousands of light-years. The astronomers used radio telescopes in Europe and the U.S., including the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to make the most detailed images ever of the center of the galaxy M 87, some 50 million light-years away.
Last Update: 1 September 2019
16-Apr-2026 15:16 UT

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