News

International teams of astronomers monitoring a supermassive black hole in the heart of a distant galaxy have detected features never seen before using data from NASA missions and other facilities including the National Science Foundation (NSF) National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). The features include the launch of a plasma jet moving at nearly one-third the speed of light and unusual, rapid X-ray fluctuations likely arising from near the very edge of the black hole.

An international team of astronomers have used a powerful array of radio telescopes to discover new insights about a magnetar that’s only a few hundred years old. By capturing precise measurements of the magnetar’s position and velocity, new clues emerge regarding its developmental path.

Huge black holes are firing powerful beams of particles into space — and then changing their aim to fire at new targets. This discovery was made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (NRAO) Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA).

Compact Symmetric Objects (CSOs) harbor supermassive black holes that emit powerful jets traveling at near-light speeds in opposite directions. However, unlike their counterparts in other galaxies, these jets remain compact, not extending out to great distances as expected. For decades, scientists presumed that CSOs were youthful entities, with their jets destined to expand over time. New findings, published in three papers in The Astrophysical Journal, challenge this notion.