The supermassive black hole at the heart of M87 was the target of the Event Horizon Telescope, revealing the area around its event horizon for the first time. Although an accretion disk surrounded the black hole, astronomers weren't sure if the black hole itself was rotating. They imaged the region with radio telescopes and discovered the remnants of polar jets, showing that the black hole's rotation axis had undergone precession over time. This precession indicates that the black hole is rotating; they're just not sure how quickly yet.
Schematic representation of the tilted accretion disk model. Credit: Cui et al. , Intouchable Lab@Openverse and Zhejiang Lab
Fifty-five million light-years away, in the galaxy known as M87, lies a supermassive black hole. It is a powerfully active black hole with a mass of 6.5 billion Suns, and in 2019 it was the first black hole to be imaged directly. The radio image captured by the Event Horizon Telescope shows a halo of ambient light warped by the black hole’s gravity and directed our way.
The team analyzed more than 17 years of radio data on the black hole’s jet and found that the jet’s orientation shifted slightly over time. It oscillates over about 10 degrees with a periodic cycle of 8 – 10 years. This means the black hole’s axis of rotation is precessing within this range. Since precession is a direct effect of rotation, this confirms the black hole rotates.Although the team confirmed rotation, the study does raise the question of what exactly causes the black hole to precess.
What’s great about this study is that it gives us solid data on the dynamic behavior of a black hole. We don’t have to rely purely on computational models to understand how black holes interact with their environment. We can now compare models to data, which will help us not only better understand black holes, but also the galaxies in which they live.
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