New image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope gives insight into far away galaxy's black hole
The photo is the sharpest image of a black hole’s surroundings ever taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.
See it: New photo shows zoomed in look of Circinus galaxy black hole
A new photo from the James Webb Space Telescope gives insight into the black hole within the Circinus galaxy located 13 million light-years from Earth.
A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope by NASA gives a glimpse into a black hole within the Circinus Galaxy.
The Circinus Galaxy is 13 million light-years from Earth.
NASA said it's long been thought that a large source of infrared light closest to the supermassive active black hole were streams of super-heated matter that fire outward called outflows.
Now, the new image from the James Webb Space Telescope, combined with a new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, suggests that the hot, dusty matter near the black hole is actually feeding the black hole, NASA said.
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This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows the Circinus galaxy. A close-up of its core from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the inner face of the hole of the donut-shaped disk of gas disk glowing in infrared light. The outer ring appears as dark spots.
(NASA, ESA, CSA, Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez (University of South Carolina), Deepashri Thatte (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Acknowledgment: NSF's NOIRLab, CTIO / NASA)
"Since the ‘90s, it has not been possible to explain excess infrared emissions that come from hot dust at the cores of active galaxies, meaning the models only take into account either the torus or the outflows, but cannot explain that excess," research lead author Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez of the University of South Carolina said.
A torus is infalling gas and dust which accumulates into a donut-shaped ring around an active black hole.
As supermassive black holes gather matter from the inner walls of the torus, they form something called an accretion disk.
NASA said this is similar to a whirlpool of water swirling around a drain. This disk grows hotter through friction, eventually becoming hot enough to emit light.
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This artist’s concept depicts the central engine of the Circinus galaxy, visualizing the supermassive black hole fed by a thick, dusty torus that glows in infrared light.
(Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) / NASA)
This glowing matter can become so bright that seeing details within the galaxy’s center with telescopes on the ground is challenging.
It’s made even harder due to the bright, concealing starlight within Circinus, NASA said.
In order to see into Circinus, the Webb Space Telescope needed its Aperture Masking Interferometer tool.
NASA said the Aperture Masking Interferometer allows Webb to become an array of smaller telescopes working together as an interferometer, creating these interference patterns by itself.
It does this by utilizing a special aperture made of seven small, hexagonal holes, which, like in photography, controls the amount and direction of light that enters the telescope’s detectors, NASA said.
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With new data, the research team was able to construct an image from the central region's interference patterns.
To do this, the team referenced data from previous observations to ensure their data from Webb was free of any errors.
This resulted in the first extragalactic observation from an infrared interferometer in space and the sharpest image of a black hole’s surroundings ever taken by Webb, NASA said.
NASA said that while the mystery of the Circinus galaxy's excess emissions has been solved, there are billions of black holes in the universe that haven't been investigated.
Read more about the photo and this research on NASA's website.