How the Messier 87 black hole and jet image was ca

Credit: Aalto University

Metsähovi Radio Telescope, located in the forests outside Greater Helsinki in Finland, was one of the telescopes used to take the first image of the M87 black hole together with its powerful jet. The image was formed from measurements gathered at 3.5mm wavelength by a network of radio telescopes around the world. The results were published in Nature on 26 April 2023.

A worldwide network of radio telescopes, the Global Millimeter VLBI Array, captured the first image showing a black hole’s shadow and its plasma jet at the same time. Researchers at Aalto University’s Metsähovi Radio Observatory, which was part of the collaboration, explain how telescopes around the world were combined to work as a single super-sized, high-resolution telescope that captured this image.

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Photos and raw video footage are available at: https://materialbank.aalto.fi/l/2vw2FcvzTckB
Nature paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05843-w
Press release: https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/astronomers-image-a-black-holes-shadow-and-powerful-jet-together-for-the-first-time

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