Researchers have been able to examine a massive jet of electromagnetic
radiation using the Event Horizon Telescope, which spans the whole
planet.
The Event Horizon Telescope, which gave us the first-ever look of a
supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy and the first photograph
of a black hole, now examined a considerably brighter target: a quasar.
Quasars are incredibly bright objects that are created when matter enters
massive black holes. The EHT team may have just looked inside one of these
so-called active galactic nuclei, which radiate electromagnetic radiation
into space.
The farthest distant object ever observed with the Event Horizon Telescope
was NRAO 530, a quasar located about 7.5 billion light-years away that was
the subject of a multinational cooperation of scientists. The team of
researchers, coordinated by Svetlana Jorstad of the Institute of
Astrophysical Research at Boston University, detected some of the quasar's
characteristics using the telescope array. They specifically captured a
photograph of a 1.7 light-year-long jet of radio-wavelength radiation.
The study team also detected the quasar's center, which is where the jet
starts, as well as two enigmatic structures there that they were unable to
view well with their present equipment. The team's studies of the light
released from the jet suggest that the magnetic field of the jet also has
some form of curve or helical pattern to it.
According to Jorstad's
comment, "The outermost feature exhibits a particularly high degree of linear
polarization, suggesting a very highly organized magnetic field."
Very Long Baseline Interferometry, sometimes referred to as VLBI, is one of
the primary techniques Jorstad and the study team utilized to photograph the
quasar. The same celestial source can be detected by a group of telescopes
dispersed throughout the globe, such as those that make up the Event Horizon
Telescope. In order to create a comprehensive image of the target,
astronomers can then gather these many data points and account for any
change in detection time (data from a source might be obtained at one
telescope slightly before it is gathered at another telescope).
Thanks to new viewing technologies like EHT and the recently deployed Webb
Space Telescope, astronomers are learning more about quasars. A polychrome
quasar whose galaxy is interacting with three others in a galactic "knot"
was seen in Webb images that were released last autumn. Additionally, the
Hubble Space Telescope saw quasar "tsunamis" in 2020, which scientists
believe could be strong enough to stop galaxy development.
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