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A fuzzy round galaxy with a bright core has a patchy jet that appear white or blue extending to the upper right

Jet Ejected from the Active Galaxy M87

image

Caption: A 3000-light-year-long jet streaming from the core of galaxy M87, as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The center of this image shows the core of the elliptical galaxy M87 (in the constellation Virgo) which hosts an active galactic nucleus (AGN). An AGN is a very luminous region around a supermassive black hole. It is powered by matter falling towards the black hole and forming a hot accretion disk. Many galaxies host a supermassive black hole, but not all of them are accreting enough matter to appear as an AGN. The strong gravity of the supermassive black hole in the heart of M87 has caused a huge jet of charges particles to be flung out from the accretion disk. This extends far out into the galaxy itself, beyond the core region. Here we see the jet as a whitish-blue line which gets wider the further it goes from the core. The light emission we see here is caused by the energetic electrons in the jet interacting with magnetic fields.
Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Lessing (Stanford University), E. Baltz (Stanford University), M. Shara (AMNH), J. DePasquale (STScI)
Credit Link

Glosar de termeni: Active Galactic Nucleus , Elliptical Galaxy , Accretion Disk , Virgo
Categories: Galaxies

License: Creative Commons Atribuire 4.0 Internațional (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Atribuire 4.0 Internațional (CC BY 4.0) icons

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