Earth-sized telescope watches a black hole's jet bend and reshape over ten years
The Event Horizon Telescope, a group of radio dishes across Earth linked to work as one giant instrument, took the sharpest pictures yet of a jet of matter shooting from near a supermassive black hole about 5 billion light-years away. Comparing images from 2011, 2017, and 2021 showed the jet's inner shape has bent and shifted between those years.
Why it matters
Jets from giant black holes carry huge amounts of energy across galaxies, but nobody fully understands how they form or why they twist the way they do. Watching one change shape over a decade gives scientists real data to test their ideas against. The possible causes on the table include violent magnetic explosions near the black hole, a wobble caused by a hidden second black hole, or unstable ripples in the flowing gas.
Who's behind it: Hendrik Mueller and the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (global).
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