An international team of scientists with participation of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy has used new millimetre-wavelength observations to image for the first time the link between the ring-like structure that reveals the matter falling into the central black hole and the powerful relativistic jet in the prominent radio galaxy Messier 87 (M87). These images show the origin of the jet and the accretion flow near the central supermassive black hole. The new observations were obtained with the Global Millimetre VLBI Array (GMVA), complemented by the phased Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) and the Greenland Telescope (GLT). The addition of these two observatories has greatly enhanced the imaging capabilities of the GMVA.
Image: © Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF; Artist’s conception showing a close-up view to the accretion flow and the jet emerging from black hole region in Messier 87.