Here is Quasar 3C 279: one of the most powerful phenomena in the cosmos

by time news

Photographed for the first time by the international Eht team – Ansa /Courier TV
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The international scientific collaboration Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) managed to portray the quasar 3C 279 for the first time. Italy also participated in the project with the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, the National Institute of Astrophysics and the Federico II University of Naples. It is a relativistic jet (emanation of plasma from active galaxies) possibly originating in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole. The technique used by EHT allowed scientists to study the base of the jet, where a highly variable gamma-ray emission is thought to originate. “3C 279” indicates a galaxy in the Virgo constellation classified as a “quasar” because a point of light shines in its center. The black hole, whose mass is about a billion times that of the Sun, “swallows” the stars and gas as they approach its accretion disk. Some of the gas is then ejected with two thin jets of plasma at speeds close to that of light. EHT’s telescopes show the forces at play with a resolution finer than a light-year, being able to see the jet and the disc as they are in action.

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