1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,080
"Inside the Hubble Image / M87 JET"

2
00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:10,400
This an image of something called M87. 

3
00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:14,160
M stands for Messier,
and Messier was an astronomer

4
00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:17,400
who was very interested in finding comets.

5
00:00:17,400 --> 00:00:18,760
But he didn't want to find duds.

6
00:00:18,760 --> 00:00:21,000
He didn't find false alarms.
This is one of them.

7
00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:22,040
And, you can see why

8
00:00:22,040 --> 00:00:23,240
if you were looking at something like that

9
00:00:23,240 --> 00:00:26,120
in a small telescope,
you might think it was a comet.

10
00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:28,480
And if we keep drilling down into why M87

11
00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:31,800
is such a fascinating galaxy,
it is an elliptical galaxy.

12
00:00:31,800 --> 00:00:35,200
And it's been known for quite a long time
that there was this little thing

13
00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:37,160
of brightness
that was spewing away from it.

14
00:00:37,160 --> 00:00:41,200
And now we know that
that's actually a jet of material.

15
00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:44,560
When Hubble was launched,
we had really good clues

16
00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:47,600
that galaxies
probably had black holes at their centers.

17
00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:51,800
So M87 does indeed
have a very massive supermassive black

18
00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:56,160
hole at its core on the 2 to 3 billion times
solar mass level.

19
00:00:56,160 --> 00:01:00,160
And that's a very massive supermassive
black hole, but it's also active.

20
00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:02,560
Why? So why are galaxies active?

21
00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:04,640
Not all galaxies are active.

22
00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:07,160
Just a few percent
are active at any given time.

23
00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:10,120
Are they turning on and turning off?
That's an idea.

24
00:01:10,120 --> 00:01:14,000
You know, maybe there's some
mechanical physics going on at the center

25
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:17,640
of these galaxies where the black hole
has an accretion disk.

26
00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:20,960
And that material
is getting spun up so quickly.

27
00:01:20,960 --> 00:01:25,080
We know there's very high
magnetic fields that you launch a jet.

28
00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:28,520
And so this image is observational
evidence that what we've been seeing for

29
00:01:28,520 --> 00:01:31,200
a while
is actually being launched by a jet

30
00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:35,560
connected to that supermassive black
hole at the center of M87.

31
00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:37,320
What we're seeing here is one jet.

32
00:01:37,320 --> 00:01:43,040
So we can assume that this material here
that's making up the bulk of M87’s

33
00:01:43,040 --> 00:01:46,920
huge stellar
population is obscuring the other jet.

34
00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:52,360
In order to get a jet like that, you need
a magnetic field to accelerate particles.

35
00:01:52,360 --> 00:01:55,200
And you also need
a source of charged particles.

36
00:01:55,200 --> 00:02:00,400
So, that means that you need, near the core
of that galaxy, a disk of material

37
00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:04,360
and that that disk of material needs to be
spewing in towards the black hole.

38
00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:07,120
It's got a huge amount of gravity.
It's going to suck stuff in.

39
00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:08,680
And when it gets close enough,

40
00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:12,800
it starts to accelerate those particles
to ever increasing rates

41
00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:15,440
and then spews them out
along magnetic field lines.

42
00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:18,520
We've got lots of particles
and they are being accelerated

43
00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:20,420
at nearly the speed of light.

44
00:02:20,420 --> 00:02:24,360
The actual connection
between having a supermassive black hole

45
00:02:24,360 --> 00:02:26,080
an accretion disk and launching

46
00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:29,760
a jet is still one of the mysteries
of high energy astrophysics.

47
00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:31,480
How does that get launched?

48
00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:41,631
What is the actual physics between
the black hole, the disk and that jet?

49
00:02:41,631 --> 00:02:55,614
"Follow us on social media @NASAHubble"