Relativistic jet

Assembled from 32 blocks · 3 evidence · 22 related

1. Story
2. A collimated outflow of plasma launched from the immediate vicinity of an accreting black hole and travelling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. M87 has the archetype: Heber Curtis, observing at Lick Observatory in 1918, described a curious straight ray attached to the galaxy's nucleus, more than sixty years before anyone could say what produced it. It extends thousands of light-years and shows apparent superluminal motion, a projection effect that itself demonstrates the bulk flow is relativistic. The leading explanation is the mechanism Blandford and Znajek described in 1977, in which magnetic field lines threading a spinning hole extract rotational energy electromagnetically - meaning the jet is powered by the black hole itself rather than only by the infalling gas. That is why the 2019 image mattered beyond the shadow: the inferred sense of rotation and the orientation of the emission were consistent with the direction of the jet already known from decades of radio observation. Not a place on Earth.
3. Knowledge
4. Accretion disc
5. Relativistic jet
6. M87* - the supermassive black hole in Messier 87
7. Connections
8. Accretion disc
9. M87* - the supermassive black hole in Messier 87
10. Heber Curtis records a curious straight ray in Messier 87
11. A mechanism for extracting energy from a spinning black hole
12. The M87* ring is imaged in polarised light
13. Innermost stable circular orbit
14. Relativistic jet
15. Cygnus X-1
16. Cygnus X-1 is localised and weighed
17. Bekenstein assigns entropy to a black hole
18. The first image of a black hole shadow is published
19. The M87* ring is imaged in polarised light
20. A second epoch shows the ring persists and the bright spot moves
21. Relativistic jet
22. Sagittarius A* - the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way
23. Heber Curtis records a curious straight ray in Messier 87
24. A mechanism for extracting energy from a spinning black hole
25. The Event Horizon Telescope observes M87* and Sagittarius A*
26. The first image of a black hole shadow is published
27. The M87* ring is imaged in polarised light
28. A second epoch shows the ring persists and the bright spot moves
29. Evidence
30. Describes the mechanism by which a magnetic field threading a rotating black hole extracts its rotational energy, the leading explanation for relativistic jets. V55 VERIFICATION BASIS: not consulted in session; no research tool was available. Volume and page are from recall and must be checked.
31. Reports the first image of a black hole shadow, an asymmetric ring about 42 microarcseconds across, together with the array, observing campaign and imaging methodology. V55 VERIFICATION BASIS: not consulted in session; WebFetch to iopscience.iop.org and eventhorizontelescope.org was refused by the egress proxy and no search could be issued. Volume and article number are from recall of a canonical citation.
32. Maps the magnetic field structure in the emitting plasma around M87*, favouring a magnetically arrested accretion state of the kind jet-launching models require. V55 VERIFICATION BASIS: not consulted in session; no research tool was available. Volume and article number are from recall and must be checked; a companion paper on the magnetic field is deliberately not cited separately.