A groundbreaking discovery has revealed the presence of a blazar—a supermassive black hole with a jet pointed directly at Earth—at an extraordinary redshift of 7.0. The object, designated VLASS J041009.05−013919.88 (J0410−0139), is the most distant blazar ever identified, providing a rare glimpse into the epoch of reionization when the universe was less than 800 million years old.
Recent News
ALMA and the Event Horizon Telescope: Moving Towards a Close-Up of a Black Hole and its Jets
An international research team has shown that the Event Horizon Telescope will be able to make exciting images of a supermassive black hole and its jets in the galaxy NGC 1052. The measurements, made with interconnected radio telescopes, also confirm strong magnetic fields close to the black hole’s edge.
Black Hole Explorer Hopes to Reveal New Details of Supermassive Black Holes
Anew agreement between the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) will help the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) take its next steps – into space.
Radio Astronomy and Black Holes
How a Telescope Made Mostly of Nothing Became Astronomy’s ‘Killer App’
Astronomers have captured the first direct visual evidence of a black hole at the center of Messier 87 (M87), a giant elliptical galaxy 55 million light-years
from Earth. This unprecedented observation was made possible by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array of eight individual radio telescopes spread over four continents and linked together to form a new, exceptionally powerful telescope. The newly released image reveals a glowing ring-like structure with a dark central region — a feature known as the “shadow” of a black hole.
As the most sensitive and largest element of the EHT, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile was instrumental in making this observation possible. With ALMA, the EHT achieved one of the highest resolutions ever in astronomy, 20 microarcseconds. A microarcseconds is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence if you were looking from the Moon. These observations will help scientists understand how the universe behaves under conditions of extreme gravity, forces so strong that they warp the fabric of space and time. This is just the latest step in a journey that began nearly 50 years ago with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (NRAO) Green Bank Interferometer: the first telescope to identify and locate the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. The EHT is a turbo-powered version of that pioneering telescope.
The full EHT story, including background on black holes and supporting materials can be found at the National Science Foundation’s special section: “Exploring Black Holes.”
NRAO Contacts:
Kazunori Akiyama
The NRAO Jansky fellow at MIT Haystack Observatory who developed new imaging techniques for the EHT and led international efforts to create the first images of the supermassive black hole in M87 as a coordinator of the imaging group.
617-715-5579; [email protected]
Charles E. Blue
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
434-296-0314; [email protected]
Recent News
Astronomers Detect Earliest and Most Distant Blazar in the Universe
A groundbreaking discovery has revealed the presence of a blazar—a supermassive black hole with a jet pointed directly at Earth—at an extraordinary redshift of 7.0. The object, designated VLASS J041009.05−013919.88 (J0410−0139), is the most distant blazar ever identified, providing a rare glimpse into the epoch of reionization when the universe was less than 800 million years old.
ALMA and the Event Horizon Telescope: Moving Towards a Close-Up of a Black Hole and its Jets
An international research team has shown that the Event Horizon Telescope will be able to make exciting images of a supermassive black hole and its jets in the galaxy NGC 1052. The measurements, made with interconnected radio telescopes, also confirm strong magnetic fields close to the black hole’s edge.
Black Hole Explorer Hopes to Reveal New Details of Supermassive Black Holes
Anew agreement between the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) will help the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) take its next steps – into space.