EHT Resolves Central Jet from Black Hole in Cen A
How do supermassive black holes create powerful jets? To help find out, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) imaged the center of the nearby active galaxy Centaurus A . The cascade of featured inset images shows Cen A from it largest, taking up more sky than many moons, to its now finest, taking up only as much sky as an golf ball on the moon . The new image shows what may look like two jets -- but is actually two sides of a single jet . This newly discovered jet-edge brightening does not solve the jet-creation mystery , but does imply that the particle outflow is confined by a strong pressure -- possibly involving a magnetic field . The EHT is a coordination of radio telescopes from around the Earth -- from the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory in Hawaii USA, to ALMA in Chile , to NOEMA in France , and more . The EHT will continue to observe massive, nearby black holes and their energetic surroundings.