Astronomers find polarized light around M87’s black hole

After producing the first-ever image of a black hole in 2019, an international team of researchers called the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration has released a new view of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy. Their discovery is a breakthrough in understanding why black holes, which are understood to exert one of the universe''s greatest gravitational pulls, can also eject outflows of jets from its core. Stephany Yang reports.

In 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole, revealing a bright ring-like structure with a dark central region- which is identified as the black hole''s shadow. In a new breakthrough, the EHT collaboration has discovered that a great amount of the light around the M87 black hole is polarized. This is the first time astronomers were able to measure polarization this close to the black hole.

Jongho Park
East Asia Core Observatory Association fellow
Magnetic fields have been regarded always as a very important element. ?It can produce very energetic phenomenon. For example, we found strong outflows of jets moving from the black hole. Which is surprising because black holes have very strong gravity. It should swallow, but instead it ejects. Magnetic fields has been thought to be responsible for this process for a long time. But unfortunately, we could not observe magnetic fields or indications of magnetic fields in the past because black holes are very small. We could not actually see this tiny region before. ?

Stephany Yang
Formosa news reporter
We are currently at the Remote Observation Room. This is where researchers observe telescopes in real-time around the world. For example, we''re currently looking at telescopes based in Greenland.

To observe the heart of the M87 galaxy, the EHT collaboration combined eight telescopes around the world to create a virtual Earth-sized telescope called the EHT. This teamwork enabled the astrophysicists to directly observe the shadow of the black hole and the ring of light around it. The new polarized-light image clearly shows that the ring is magnetized.

Dr. Keiichi Asada
Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysicist
Scientifically, because of the structure of the magnetic field, we think that this is a clue on how black holes eject materials on other black holes. So far, we are not sure if the black hole is spinning or not spinning, and how it is connected to the magnetic field. In the future observation, we can have much nicer resolution and plan to see much sharper polarization and understand the spin of the black hole more .

The EHT consortium consists of 13 stakeholder institutes including Taiwan''s Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, MIT, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and more. The EHT Taiwan Team have been studying the build-up of material into black holes and jet formation for quite a while. The black hole images will provide new information about the structure of the magnetic fields outside the black hole.

Dr. Satoki Matsushita
Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysicist
In April, we are going to observe another black hole observation. We are checking the system and also measuring the characteristics of the telescope for using the data analysis for those kind of data. So we can correctly measure the characteristics of the black hole.

Cristina Romero-Canizales
Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysicist
Here you see that we are following Mars. This pointing observations we are making. We just need to be careful that when following Mars that it doesn''t go there because there is some hard constraints on the telescopes as it is following and tracking a source.

In April, the EHT Taiwan team plans to observe another black hole. They''re currently making sure the telescopes are working for the next step in a project making surprising discoveries about one of space’s greatest mysteries.

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