Locus Of Physics

The Collaboration Behind the First Black Hole Image Reveals New Clues About M87’s Powerful Jet
In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration stunned the world by producing the first-ever image of a black hole. The object captured was M87*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87, roughly 55 million light-years from Earth. Beyond its historic image, M87* is also famous for launching one of the most powerful relativistic jets ever observed — a stream of charged particles traveling near the speed of light and extending thousands of light-years into space.
Now, new observations from the same collaboration are shedding light on where exactly this enormous jet originates, offering a clearer view of how black holes power such extreme cosmic phenomena.
A Giant Black Hole with an Enormous Jet
M87* is colossal even by supermassive black hole standards. Measurements using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) — a technique that links radio telescopes around the globe to act like one Earth-sized instrument — show that the black hole’s shadow spans roughly 25,000 astronomical units, or about 3.7 trillion kilometers, and contains the mass of 6.5 billion Suns.
From the vicinity of this black hole emerges a jet stretching over 3,000 light-years, visible across many wavelengths of light. These jets are believed to form when intense gravity and magnetic fields accelerate matter and energy away from the black hole’s poles, but the precise launching point has long remained uncertain.
Filling in the Missing Pieces
Earlier EHT observations successfully resolved the black hole’s shadow and surrounding ring of hot plasma. However, scientists noticed something puzzling: part of the radio emission expected from models appeared to be missing.
The issue lay in observational coverage. The EHT network relies on telescopes separated by varying distances, known as baselines.
Very long baselines capture extremely fine details, such as the black hole’s shadow.
Shorter baselines reveal larger-scale structures, including extended portions of the jet.
But intermediate baselines, crucial for bridging the gap between these two regions, were previously sparse.
New data collected in 2021 provided better intermediate baseline coverage, allowing researchers to connect emissions close to the black hole with structures further along the jet.
Locating the Jet’s Origin
By comparing radio emission at multiple spatial scales and incorporating theoretical modeling, researchers identified an additional compact emission region located roughly 0.09 light-years from M87*. This region likely corresponds to the base of the jet, where material begins accelerating outward.
In other words, scientists are now beginning to observe how matter transitions from swirling around the black hole into being launched outward at near-light speed.
As study lead researcher Saurabh explained, this marks an important step toward linking theoretical jet-launching models with direct observational evidence.
A More Complete Picture Emerging
Astronomers have studied the M87 jet for decades, but resolution improvements have steadily pushed observations closer to the black hole itself. The milestone 2019 image showed the shadow; now researchers are moving toward mapping how the jet emerges from that environment.
Future improvements are already underway. The Large Millimeter Telescope in Mexico is being reintegrated into EHT observations, which will sharpen resolution further. As more telescopes join and data-processing techniques improve, scientists expect to directly image the jet-launching region in greater detail.
Why It Matters
Understanding how jets form is critical because these structures influence entire galaxies. Jets from supermassive black holes can heat surrounding gas, regulate star formation, and shape galactic evolution over millions of years.
By studying M87*, astronomers are effectively watching one of the universe’s most extreme natural engines at work — testing physics under conditions impossible to recreate on Earth.
And with each new EHT observation, we move closer to understanding how black holes interact with and shape the cosmos around them.

Researchers "Control the Dance" of Quantum Entanglement
PARIS – A team of researchers, led by Lisa-Marie Koll, has announced a significant breakthrough in the field of quantum mechanics, successfully demonstrating a method to control the "invisible bond" known as quantum entanglement.
The phenomenon of entanglement occurs when two particles become linked in such a way that the state of one instantly influences the state of the other, even when separated by distance. The researchers compared this scientific mystery to a synchronized dance, much like the famous performance by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, where two dancers remain in perfect harmony even after they move apart.
The Experiment
The team focused on a process called photoionization. When light is shone on an atom to eject an electron, the departing electron and the remaining ion stay "linked," forming a synchronized pair. Historically, this bond was viewed as a scientific obstacle because the resulting "interference" made it difficult for researchers to observe the internal vibrations and properties of the individual particles.
The Breakthrough
According to the study, titled "Experimental control of quantum-mechanical entanglement in an attosecond pump-probe experiment," the researchers have succeeded in manipulating this bond for the first time. Using attosecond laser flashes—pulses so brief they are measured in billionths of a billionth of a second—the team was able to control the degree of entanglement between the particles.
This advance offers a new level of mastery over the "infinitely small and infinitely fast," potentially opening doors for more stable quantum computing and a deeper understanding of how matter behaves at the most fundamental level.





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