Super energy gamma beam

Using a combination of telescopes around the globe, scientists have discovered huge energetic gamma rays coming from an area close to the supermassive black hole. This finding provides important information about the mysterious operation of the powerful "engines" at the heart of countless galaxies throughout the universe.

The galaxy M87, located 50 million light-years away from Earth, contains in its mind a black hole about 6 billion times the size of the Sun. A black hole is such a dense set of matter that no light can escape its gravity. It is believed that the black hole absorbs matter from its surroundings - and these materials when it falls into a black hole will form a spinning disk.

The processes that take place near this disk, are dominated by the enormous energy from the black hole's gravity, pushing energy materials away for thousands of light years. This phenomenon makes people observe the rays emitted from many galaxies. In 1998, astronomers discovered that M87 is also emitting gamma rays that are one trillion times more energetic than conventional light.

However, telescopes that discovered these high-energy gamma beams were unable to determine where the rays originated from the galaxy. In 2007 and 2008, astronomers using these gamma-ray telescopes combined a study with a radio telescope system using VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array).

'The combination of gamma-ray observations with the super-sharp radio image of VLBA allows us to see gamma rays approaching from a very close to the black hole,' said Craig Walker of the Astronomical Observatory. National Radio (NRAO).

'Finding the exact location of this beam emitting region will answer the previous question that remains open and provides suggestions to help clarify how high energy is emitted from these rays,' Matthias Beilicke , teaching staff at Washington University in St. Louis said.

Gamma light emitted from the galaxy is monitored by large telescopes systems designed specifically to detect blue light rays when gamma rays penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. Data from ultra-sensitive cameras in these systems allow the team to deduce the source of gamma-ray energy and the direction they originate. However, the directional information is not accurate enough to localize the location of this beam in the galaxy.

The VLBA system improves resolution productivity millions of times, allowing scientists to determine that gamma rays come from the vicinity of black holes. Although gamma rays are the most energetic form of electron radiation and radio waves are the least energetic form, both often occur from the same region. This is clearly shown when the most energetic gamma ray light comes with rays emitting radio waves from the galaxy observed by VLBA.

M87 is the largest galaxy in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, located at the center of the "string" of galaxies including the Local Group which contains our Milky Way galaxy. The black hole in M87 has a ' cosmic horizon ', the matter cannot escape from here. It is about two times the size of the solar system, and is a tiny fraction of the size of an entire galaxy. The latest measurements show that gamma rays come from an area with a maximum size of 50 times the size of the cosmic horizon.

The telescope system discovered gamma rays including the VERITAS antenna in Arizona, the HESS system in Namibia, and the MAGIC system in La Palma in the Canary Islands.

The VLBA is a system of 10 astronomical-radio antennas stretching from Hawaii to the Caribbean, operated by the NRAO Observatory in Socorro, New Mexico state. VLBA offers high resolution productivity equivalent to reading a newspaper located in New York while standing in Los Angeles.

Walker and Beilicke teamed up with Fred Davies from NRAO observatory and Henric Krawczynski from Washington University, Phil Hardee from Alabama University, Bill Junor from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Chun Ly from University of California in Los Angeles , and many other scientists belonging to VERITAS, HESS, and MAGIC. The team reported the results in the online Science journal on July 2.

Looking closely at the core region of the galaxy M87: on the left is a picture of the galaxy with rays emitting radio waves at a distance of nearly 200,000 light years.Next is the zoom image closer to the galaxy core, where a super-large black hole exists.According to the author, the black hole in the center of the galaxy is about twice the size of the solar system, about 6 billion times the mass of the Sun, but only a fraction of the size of a galaxy.(Photo: Saxton Bill, NRAO / AUI / NSF)