#M87*

[quiltofstars]

M87 // Rolf Olsen

M87, also called Virgo A, is an extremely radio-loud galaxy, meaning it emits a lot of light in the radio. The source of this radio? Likely a supermassive black hole at its core!

This black hole, called M87* (M87-star), is about 6 billion times the mass of the Sun and has a size of about 120 AU, or about 3 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto!

M87* was the first black hole to ever be directly imaged, a task accomplished with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) in 2019. This telescope works by combining the light-gathering power from several radio telescope across the world, effectively making a telescope as large as the Earth itself!

The black hole is currently swallowing up material and has a ring of highly ionized gas around it (shown in orange in the inset). Sometimes the black hole "burps" and emits a jet of matter. This jet currently measures about 5,000 light years long moving at about 85% the speed of light.

[piratesexmachine420]

Happy Birthday to this photo of M87* -- the first image of any black hole ever!

[mexicanistnet]

EHT's global collaboration unveils magnetic fields and particle dynamics around M87* black hole using circular polarization. This breakthrough sheds light on matter consumption and jet formation, showcasing the consortium's pivotal role in unraveling cosmic mysteries.

[unbfacts]

[spacetelescopescience]

Astronomers using Hubble have discovered that the blowtorch-like jet blasting from a supermassive black hole at the core of galaxy M87 (left) seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory (right): https://bit.ly/3XwMsiu

[deep-space-netwerk]

Alright, so, black holes right?

Most people have probably seen this astOUNDING image of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy - the first real picture of a black hole.

It may look like a blurry orange donut, but you gotta understand, this was and still is a hugely impressive achievement. At a black hole's event horizon, the escape velocity (or the speed at which something has to travel to escape the body's gravitational pull) is faster than the speed of light. By definition a black hole cannot be directly observed. Imaging the shadow of M87* required using eight ground-based radio telescopes all over the world, working together as an interferometer - or as though they were one single telescope the size of the entire planet.

So that's fucking cool in its own right, but how did we know that black holes existed before 2019 when we could actually "see" one? How do we detect something that reflects no light when we DON'T have a simulated telescope the size of Earth? The answer is gravity.

We think that most large galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers, left over from their chaotic infancies when hundreds of thousands of early stars collided and then collapsed, and then kept colliding. To give you an idea of what we mean by "supermassive", the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (pronounced "A-star"), is about 4 million times the mass of our sun. And that's SMALL.

So while black holes aren't the horrible all-consuming reality-guzzling unmakers of creation that science fiction likes to paint them as - we aren't in any danger whatsoever from Sagittarius A*, now or ever - they CAN get big enough to really throw things around. So we looked for objects moving under the influence of . . . nothing.

This gif is a years-long timelapse of stars orbiting something in a seemingly-empty region of space the center of the Milky Way, the approximate location marked with a red plus sign.

That something is Sag A*. It's an invisible behemoth, made of the extraordinarily dense remains of the birth of our galaxy, juggling entire solar systems the way Jupiter flings asteroids. And for so long, we couldn't even see it.

This shit makes me go fucking crazy. Imagine what else is out there that we don't understand just because we don't have the tools to even know it exists! Not just in space, in any field of scientific study!

It wasn't until the 1990s that we started realizing trees talk to each other, and now we know there's fungal mycelium networks that connect trees across entire continents. Just THIS YEAR we discovered an entirely new ecosystem underneath the hydrothermal vents in the deepest parts of the ocean floor. For most of human history, the existence of planets around other stars was highly debated, and now we've confirmed over 5 thousand of them. We even know what some of their atmospheres are made of!

There's a saying that "the more you know, the more you know you'll never know", and I feel like there's never been a time in history when that's been more true. And it's almost comforting, y'know? The universe is so vast, it feels correct that we shouldn't be able to understand all of its intricacies.

Reality is stranger than fiction, and the reality is there's stuff out there that we don't even have the words to begin to describe. Until we do! And our reward is even more questions!

[planetaryalphabet]

An image from Hubble of the plasma jet spewing from M87, supermassive black hole at the center Messier 87's galactic core. M87 is the largest and most massive galaxies in the local universe

Image: NASA, ESA, A. Lessing (Stanford University), E. Baltz (Stanford University), M. Shara (AMNH), J. DePasquale (STScI)

[skade-ink]

Hello guys, today we are recording a strange guy who was stalking me

[stellarred]

Even black holes help shape the universe.

Everything has its place.

[klenda-v]

Happy Ultraman Day 2023!

I wanted to do something that evoked the same feeling as Kenshi Yonezu’s M87, that euphoric hope and light.

Here’s to another brilliant year of celebrating hope and forming bonds with one another.

[1n7mm]

[boghermit]

Forbidden Spaghetti-O

[m87gallium]

A little Scooby Doo “fanart” thing heavily based off the following pic of Alaska y los pegamoides (a New Wave group from the early 80’s in Spain 😁😁😁). Retrospectively the staring at the camera reminded me of the intro shot in the original scooby doo where Velma is reading a book and is at the centre. :-)

[deliriumzer0]

Kenshi Yonezu 2024 Uniqlo collab display at the Uniqlo store in Disney Springs.

[radio-4-is-static]

LADY | Kenshi Yonezu

引っ張ったり噛み付いたり 傷ついたふりしてみたり 明日の朝に持ち越したり 浮ついたりして 思いきり傷つきたい いつまでもそばにいたい 今すぐ行方をくらまそう

///

Pushing and pulling, biting remarks, acting hurt Occasionally carrying over unresolved issues until the following morning Feeling giddy at other times Want to be hurt as much as possible Want to stay by your side forever Let’s break away and disappear right now

[m0stly-h4rmless]

Black Holes!!

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾

A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. This phenomenon occurs when a massive star collapses under its own gravity at the end of its life. The resulting object becomes incredibly dense, with a gravitational pull so intense that it bends spacetime into a singularity, and absorbs its own photons.

Black holes are often classified into three main types:

Stellar-mass black holes: These are formed from the collapse of massive stars.

Supermassive black holes: These are millions or even billions of times more massive than our Sun and are found at the centres of galaxies.

Intermediate-mass black holes: These are thought to be formed from the merging of smaller black holes.

While black holes are difficult to observe directly due to their ability to absorb light, astronomers can detect their presence through indirect methods such as observing the motion of nearby stars or detecting X-rays emitted from matter that is being pulled into the black hole.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾

The black hole imaged was a supermassive one, located at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87), which is about 55 million light-years away from Earth. This colossal object, known as M87, is estimated to be billions of times the mass of our Sun.

To capture this elusive image, a global network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) was used. The EHT essentially created a virtual telescope the size of Earth, allowing it to achieve the resolution necessary to see the black hole's event horizon, the point of no return beyond which nothing can escape.

The image itself is a ring of glowing gas surrounding a dark centre. The dark centre is the black hole's shadow, a region where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. The glowing ring is made up of gas that is being heated to incredibly high temperatures as it swirls around the black hole.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾

[above shows the first image of a black hole at the center of the galaxy M87, using the Event Horizon Telescope]

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾

x