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LiveScience
LiveScience
Ben Turner

Behold the first direct image of a supermassive black hole spewing a jet of particles

The black hole M87* pictured with a gigantic jet of material streaming from it.

Astronomers have photographed a black hole spewing a powerful jet of material at near light speeds for the very first time.

The jet is being launched from around the event horizon (the point beyond from which no matter can escape) of the black hole M87*, the first black hole to ever be directly imaged. Located 53 million light-years away from Earth at the center of the galaxy Messier 87, M87* is supermassive — a cosmic monster as wide as our solar system and 6.5 billion times the mass of the sun.

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