Astronomers have captured the first direct image of a black hole as it blasts out a powerful jet.

The new photo features the monstrous supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87), the first black hole ever directly imaged by humanity.

The image shows precisely for the first time how the base of such an astrophysical jet moving at speeds approaching that of light connects to matter swirling around a supermassive black hole before being fed to its surface, a process astronomers call accretion. Previous images of M87's central black hole had managed to capture the jet it emits and the supermassive black hole itself, but not the two features together.

Source: www.space.com

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