The first black hole ever photographed is no longer just a static ring of darkness. Astronomers have now traced a colossal jet of matter and energy blasting outward from that same object, revealing how activity at the very edge of a supermassive black hole can shape a galaxy on scales of thousands of light-years. By stitching together observations across multiple telescopes and wavelengths, researchers have effectively drawn a line from the black hole’s glowing shadow to a vast cosmic beam that has puzzled astronomers for decades.
What emerges is a portrait of Messier 87’s central engine that is far more dynamic and interconnected than the original image suggested. The new work links the bright ring around the black hole to a jet that stretches roughly 3,000 light-years, offering rare insight into how gravity, magnetic fields and high-energy plasma cooperate to launch some of the most powerful structures in the universe.
The galaxy with a 3,000-light-year blowtorch
At the heart of the giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87, often shortened to M87, sits a supermassive black hole whose silhouette became iconic when it was first imaged in 2019. That same object, known as M87*, is now firmly tied to a jet of charged particles that extends roughly 3,000-light-year across intergalactic space, a structure so large that it dwarfs the galaxy’s bright central region. Earlier images from optical observatories had already shown a narrow blue streak slicing out of M87, but the new mapping effort connects that distant feature directly to the black hole’s immediate surroundings. In practical terms, astronomers have followed the jet from the scale of the event horizon, measured in light-hours, to a structure that spans thousands of years of light travel time.
Using the Event Horizon Telescope, or EHT, astronomers tracked this 3,000 light-years-long jet back to its source, the dark object whose ring-like emission pattern first captured public attention. That connection matters because it turns a striking picture into a working physical model: the same plasma that glows in radio waves around the black hole appears to be funneled into a narrow, relativistic outflow that punches far beyond the galaxy’s core. For a system that sits roughly 55 million light-years from Earth, the ability to trace such fine detail across such a vast distance is a technical and conceptual leap.
How the Event Horizon Telescope zoomed in on the jet’s base
To make that leap, astronomers relied on a technique that effectively turns Earth into a planet-sized radio dish. The Event Horizon Telescope is not a single instrument but a global network of observatories that observe the same target at the same time, then combine their data through a method known as Very Long Baseline Interferometry, or VLBI. By observing different scales with VLBI, researchers can resolve structures near the black hole that would otherwise be hopelessly blurred, achieving an angular resolution sharp enough to pick out features comparable to a credit card on the Moon. This is the same approach that produced the original image of M87*, but the latest campaign focused on how the jet emerges from the region just outside the event horizon.
In the new analysis, scientists used EHT observations of M87* taken in 2021 to probe the jet’s base and its relationship to the bright ring of emission around the black hole. According to the collaboration’s own description of the work, observing the system at multiple scales with VLBI is crucial for understanding how the central engine operates, because it links the compact ring to the much larger jet. By comparing the brightness and shape of the ring to the emerging outflow, the team can test models of how magnetic fields thread the accretion disk and channel material into a narrow beam instead of letting it fall directly into the black hole.
From bright ring to galaxy-scale jet
The new maps show that the luminous ring around M87* is not an isolated spectacle but the inner edge of a much larger structure that feeds the jet. Astronomers have charted how the ring’s emission connects to a narrow spine of plasma that accelerates outward, eventually forming the extended feature seen in optical and radio images of Messier 87. In effect, they have drawn a continuous path from the region where gravity is strongest to the outer reaches of the galaxy, where the jet interacts with surrounding gas. That connection helps explain how a compact object only a few times larger than our solar system can influence its environment on scales measured in thousands of light-years.
One key result is that the jet appears to be powered by processes very close to the event horizon, where magnetic fields anchored in the accretion flow can tap into the black hole’s rotation. New observations with the EHT, described as new insights into the jet base of Messier 87, indicate that the outflow is already collimated and accelerated within a few dozen gravitational radii of the black hole. That finding supports theoretical models in which magnetic fields extract energy from the spinning black hole and its disk, rather than relying solely on processes farther out in the galaxy. It also helps explain why some galaxies, like M87, produce spectacular jets while others with similar black hole masses remain comparatively quiet.
Why M87’s jet matters for black holes everywhere
Messier 87 has long been a laboratory for understanding how galaxies launch powerful streams of charged particles into space. Astronomers have known for decades that Some galaxies eject such jets from their centers, and the prominent jet of Messier 87, often labeled M87, has been a textbook example. What was missing until now was a clear, observational bridge between the black hole’s immediate environment and the large-scale outflow. By tying the 3,000-light-year structure directly to the ring around M87*, the new work offers a template for interpreting more distant systems where the central regions cannot be resolved as sharply.
The stakes go beyond one galaxy. Jets like the one in Messier 87 can heat and stir the gas that would otherwise cool and form new stars, effectively regulating how galaxies grow over cosmic time. By clarifying where the jet is launched and how it is powered, the EHT results feed directly into models of galaxy evolution that must account for feedback from active black holes. In that sense, the bright ring and its attached jet are not just curiosities but key ingredients in the story of how structures like the Milky Way came to be.
Peering across the spectrum, from Hubble to horizon scale
Although the Event Horizon Telescope provides the sharpest view near the black hole, the full picture of M87’s jet relies on a mosaic of instruments operating across the electromagnetic spectrum. Optical images from Hubble Space Telescope view show the jet as a bright, knotted streak emerging from the galaxy’s core, extending the same 3,000-light-year distance that radio astronomers trace in longer wavelengths. X-ray observatories reveal hotspots where the jet slams into surrounding gas, while ground-based radio arrays map the broader lobes of emission that form as the outflow slows and disperses. Each band highlights different populations of particles and magnetic field structures, and together they confirm that the jet carries enormous energy away from the black hole.
On the finest scales, the EHT’s VLBI technique fills in the missing link between those large-scale images and the black hole’s shadow. By combining data from multiple radio facilities, the collaboration can resolve the innermost part of the jet where it first becomes visible, a region that earlier optical and X-ray instruments could not isolate. The team describes how observations with the Event Horizon Telescope provide fresh insight into where the powerful jet of the galaxy Messier 87 originates, linking the compact radio ring to the broader outflow that other telescopes see. In effect, astronomers are now watching the same structure across its entire life cycle, from its birth near the event horizon to its impact on the galaxy’s outskirts.
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