M87

More Complex Than A Black Hole

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has recently mapped the central object of the galaxy M87 with an unprecedented angular resolutions. Though the remarkable breakthrough has been interpreted based on theory that M87 contains rotating or "Kerr" black hole. The black hole is located 55 million light-years from earth in the Virgo constellations lies the galaxy Messier 87 or M87, which harbors’ a black hole 6.5 billion times the mass of our sun at its core.

                               This black hole M87 shoots a jet of plasma at near the speed of light, a so-called relativistic jet on a scale of 6,000 light years. The tremendous energy needed to power this jet probably originates from the gravitational pull of the black hole but how was just like this comes about and what keeps its stable across the enormous distance is not yet fully understood.

                               When stars much more massive than the Sun reach the end of their lives, they collapse under their own gravity and the product of this collapse, most astronomers believe is a black hole. A black hole has two parts : At its core is a singularity - a point that is infinitely dense, as all the remnants mass of the star is compressed into this point. Then, there is the event horizon an imaginary surface surrounding the singularity and the gravity of the object is such that once anything enters this surface, it is trapped forever.

                              Now, while researches have been able to study and observe the black hole in M87 (especially thanks to the image created in 2019) questions still remain about how such a powerful relativistic jet comes to be and how it remains stable, shooting across a distance in space. The debate follows whether to use Occam's razor and discard these possibilities or to keep them and handle them with care.