Like a monstrous cosmic spider, a distant supermassive black hole is spinning a plasma jet into a twisted rope and blasting it out at near-light speed. This spectacular sight was witnessed by astronomers using a network of radio telescopes, including the RadioAstron space telescope, which together form an Earth-sized antenna. The target of this observation was the heart of a distant blazar named 3C 279.
These observations provide the most detailed look at an astrophysical jet emerging from a supermassive black hole to date. The images revealed a complex and twisted pattern near the jet’s source, challenging currently accepted theories that have been used for 40 years to explain the creation and evolution of these jets.
“Thanks to RadioAstron and a network of twenty-three radio telescopes distributed across the Earth, we have obtained the highest-resolution image of the interior of a blazar to date, allowing us to observe the internal structure of the jet in such detail for the first time,” said Antonio Fuentes, the team leader and a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC).
Blazars, like 3C 279, are the bright hearts of galaxies that emit powerful light due to hosting a feeding supermassive black hole. These black holes continuously churn the matter they consume, which forms flattened plates of gas and dust known as accretion disks. Collectively, these scenarios are called active galactic nuclei. Active galactic nuclei are often so bright that they outshine all the stars in their surrounding galaxies.
Around 10% of active galactic nuclei shoot out astrophysical jets during the feeding process, and these are known as quasars. When the jets are aimed directly at Earth, they are called blazars. The new observations of 3C 279 reveal unprecedented details of the plasma jet and the supermassive black hole at its core.
“This is the first time we have seen such filaments so close to the jet’s origin, and they tell us more about how the black hole shapes the plasma,” said Eduardo Ros, another member of the team. “This shows how different telescopes can reveal different features of the same object.”
The team discovered that the jet consists of at least two twisted filaments of plasma that stretch over 570 light-years from their source. The observations also revealed that the plasma jets are not straight and uniform; they exhibit twists and turns influenced by the central black hole. The image of the entangled filaments in the jet appears as a fiery red streak on a black background.
The twists, or helical filaments, are the result of instabilities in the plasma jet. This challenges prior theories of how these jets evolve and suggests a revised understanding of the role magnetic fields play in the initial formation of near-light speed jets from active galactic nuclei.
“One particularly intriguing aspect arising from our results is that they suggest the presence of a helical magnetic field that confines the jet,” said Guang-Yao Zhao, another team member. “Therefore, it could be the magnetic field, which rotates clockwise around the jet in 3C 279, that directs and guides the jet’s plasma moving at a speed of 0.997 times the speed of light.”
This research highlights the need to build more accurate models of the processes at play around feeding supermassive black holes and the importance of improved radio telescopes and imaging techniques to study distant cosmic objects in greater detail.
“We are entering an entirely novel terrain in which these filaments can be actually connected to the most intricate processes in the immediate vicinity of the black hole producing the jet,” said Andrei Lobanov, another team member.
The team’s groundbreaking research was published in the journal Nature Astronomy on October 26th.
