Scientists image distant blazar J1924-2914 using Event Horizon Telescope

Scientists, using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), have imaged the distant blazar J1924-2914 with an unprecedented angular resolution, revealing previously unseen details of the source structure. The images reveal a helically bent jet emerging from a compact quasar core.

A blazar is a type of galaxy whose intense emissions are powered by supersized black holes. It can outshine its entire galaxy and may be observed from a distance of billions of light-years with our radio telescopes.

"Our images constitute the highest angular resolution images of polarized emission from a quasar ever obtained. We see interesting details in the strongly polarized innermost core of the source; the morphology of the polarized emission is hinting at the presence of a twisted magnetic field structure," said Sara Issaoun, NHFP Einstein Fellow at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts and lead of this study.

New results: EHT scientists have imaged the distant blazar J1924-2914, revealing previously unseen details of the source structure. A blazar is a supermassive black hole ejecting a powerful jet along our line of sight that can outshine its entire galaxy! 📡🌎📡 pic.twitter.com/Ck2riBa2c6

— Event Horizon 'Scope (@ehtelescope) August 8, 2022

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a network of radio telescopes spread across the Earth. The telescopes involved in the EHT collaboration are the Atacama Large Millimetre Telescope (ALMA), the Atacama Pathfinder EXplorer (APEX), the Greenland Telescope (since 2018), the IRAM 30-meter Telescope, the IRAM NOEMA Observatory (expected 2021), the Kitt Peak Telescope (expected 2021), the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), the Submillimeter Array (SMA), the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT), and the South Pole Telescope (SPT).

By linking together existing telescopes using novel systems, the EHT leverages considerable global investment to create a fundamentally new instrument with angular resolving power that is the highest possible from the surface of the Earth.