The Event Horizon Telescope, or EHT, links radio dishes to act as one instrument. An active galactic nucleus, a galaxy\u2019s bright black hole powered center, pours out radio light.<\/p>\n This analysis compared radio size, flux, and brightness temperature, an intensity measure expressed as an equivalent temperature, across frequencies. The team found that farther out the jets<\/a> look hotter and brighter.<\/p>\n At 230 gigahertz, EHT sees features just millionths of a degree wide. That reach is possible with very long baseline interferometry, a technique that combines distant antennas into one view.<\/p>\n Black hole jet models<\/p>\n The Blandford-K\u00f6nigl<\/a> model, a conical jet picture with nearly constant speed, has guided radio astronomy for decades. It predicts simple trends for brightness and size with distance.<\/p>\n Near the core the data require either bulk acceleration or energy transfer from fields to particles. The magnetization, how strongly magnetic fields control the plasma energy, cannot stay fixed there.<\/p>\n Geometry can trick our eyes when a jet bends toward us. That is because Doppler boosting, apparent brightening from motion toward the observer, can mimic a speed up.<\/p>\n Using sixteen sources reduces the chance that one oddball dominates the conclusion. A population level pattern is hard to blame on a single bend or flare.<\/p>\n Closer, sharper, weirder<\/p>\n At 3.5 millimeters, images <\/a>of M87<\/a> revealed a ring linked to the jet base. The ring looks thick because of synchrotron self absorption, radio waves blocked by hot plasma close to the hole.<\/p>\n That view shows the jet connecting to the inner flow. It tells us that the region feeding the jet is wider and messier than a simple nozzle.<\/p>\n Event Horizon Telescope observations<\/a> <\/a>of Centaurus A traced narrowing and mapped brightness near the launch point. The collimation, how a flow narrows with distance, followed a gentle profile.<\/p>\n Together these results bracket the EHT scale and hint at layered jets. That context strengthens the case that acceleration near the core is common.<\/p>\n Black hole jet acceleration<\/p>\n If black hole jets brighten outward, energy must move into the particles that make the radio glow. A high Poynting flux<\/a>, energy carried by electromagnetic fields, can turn into particle motion.<\/p>\n Magnetic turbulence can spark magnetic reconnection, field lines that snap and realign while dumping energy into electrons. That process can raise speed without adding mass.<\/p>\n Another option is a spine surrounded by a slower sheath. The inner spine could accelerate while the sheath sets the overall collimation.<\/p>\n The EHT result does not pick one mechanism. It narrows the menu by showing where and how fast the changes happen.<\/p>\n Confirming with other telescopes<\/p>\n Long term VLBA monitoring found accelerations in many black hole jets pointing almost directly at Earth. Blazars often speeds up<\/a> within dozens of light years of the core.<\/p>\n Those studies saw speeds rise near the base and settle or slow farther out. The EHT pattern fits the start of that curve at even smaller scales.<\/p>\n Arrays like the GMVA fill the gap between EHT and longer wavelength surveys. Adding stations increases the maximum baseline, the distance between two antennas used together, which sharpens the image.<\/p>\n Since 2017, new antennas have joined global networks and improved coverage in the north and south. Better coverage makes subtle changes along the jet easier to measure.<\/p>\n Lessons from black hole jets<\/p>\n Black hole jets dump energy into surrounding gas and change how stars form. That feedback, energy and matter that alter a galaxy\u2019s growth, depends on where the jet accelerates and how long it stays fast.<\/p>\n In March 2025, Reuters reported that the Euclid mission<\/a> released early sky maps showing how galaxies form a vast cosmic web. <\/p>\n Officials explained that only about 5 percent of the universe is currently understood, while the remaining 95 percent remains dark and mysterious.<\/p>\n Pinning down jet physics slots one piece into that bigger puzzle. It links the behavior near a black hole to signals we map across the sky.<\/p>\n Measuring polarization, the orientation of radio waves that traces magnetic fields, will reveal how energy threads the flow. Tracking those threads over time will test acceleration directly.<\/p>\n The main study has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jets near supermassive black holes are speeding up when they should be cruising. That is what a fresh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-285154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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