A swirling jet of plasma 570 light-years long is ejected from a distant blazar at nearly the speed of light. Like a monstrous cosmic spider, a distant supermassive black hole weaves a jet of plasma into a twisted string and launches it at near the speed of light.
Astronomers witnessed this impressive spectacle using an array of radio telescopes, including the RadioAstron space telescope, which together form an Earth-sized antenna. Specifically, this array was focused to observe the heart of a distant blazar called 3C 279.
These observations represent the most detailed look scientists have ever had at an astrophysical jet emanating from a supermassive black hole, revealing a complex and twisted pattern near the jet's source. This new image could challenge currently accepted theories that have been used for 40 years to explain how these jets are created and how they evolve over time.
"Thanks to RadioAstron and a network of twenty-three radio telescopes distributed around the Earth, we have obtained the highest resolution image of the interior of a blazar to date, allowing us to observe the internal structure of the jet with such a level of detail for the first time," said Antonio Fuentes, team leader and researcher at the Astrophysics Institute of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC). Blazars, such as 3C 279, are the luminous hearts of galaxies that emit a bright light as a result of hosting a supermassive black hole in the process of being powered. Here's what this means.
The black hole spewing plasma into the universe amazes
Actively feeding supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies continuously mix the matter they feed on, and this material is located as flattened disks of gas and dust around the holes. These disks are called "accretion disks". Collectively, such scenarios are known collectively as active galactic nuclei. Active galactic nuclei are often so bright that they shine brighter than the combined light of all the stars in the surrounding galaxies.
But about 10% of galactic nuclei active emit astrophysical jets during the entire fueling process. These are known as quasars – and when these quasars have jets pointing directly at Earth, they are called blazars.
New observations of 3C 279 reveal unprecedented detail of the plasma jet and supermassive black hole at the heart of this blazar. "This is the first time we see such filaments so close to the origin of the jet, and they tell us more about how the black hole shapes the plasma," said Eduardo Ros, another member of the team and European coordinator of the mm-VLBI Global Network. Array. "This shows how different telescopes can reveal different features of the same object."
Specifically, the team found that the jet is composed of at least two twisted filaments of plasma that stretch more than 570 light-years from their source. Observations have also shown that the plasma jets are not straight and uniform; they show twists and turns that occur as a result of the influence of the central black hole, implying that previous theories of how these jets evolve may need revision. This research could also revise our understanding of the role of magnetic fields in the initial formation of near-light jets from active galactic nuclei.
"A particularly intriguing aspect of our results is that they suggest the presence of a helical magnetic field that confines the jet," said Guang-Yao Zhao, one of the team members and a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. "Therefore, it could be the magnetic field, which rotates clockwise around the jet in 3C 279, that directs and guides the plasma of the jet moving at 0,997 times the speed of light."
