Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  HD108915  ·  IC 3443  ·  IC 3457  ·  M 87  ·  NGC 4476  ·  NGC 4478  ·  NGC 4486  ·  Virgo Galaxy
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M87 and its relativistic jet, Xenofon Nastos
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M87 and its relativistic jet

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M87 and its relativistic jet, Xenofon Nastos
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M87 and its relativistic jet

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I was able to capture this picture of M87 last week. The galaxy itself - it contains several trillions of stars - is visually not very spectacular but the fact that it inherits one of the biggest black holes of our local universe with a mass of aproximately 6.5 billion solar masses makes it very interesting. In 2021 the Event Horizon telescope collaboration made it to capture the shadow of the black hole in polarized light. The black hole emits magnetized plasma at relativistic speed powered by an accretion disc around the black hole. Luckily this jet can be visualized also in RGB. If you zoom into my image you can clearly see the jet.

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M87 and its relativistic jet, Xenofon Nastos