Observations of Black Hole Jet Collision published in Nature

UMBC Astrophysicists Eileen Meyer and Markos Georganopoulos have recently published an article in the journal Nature (along with colleagues from STScI, FIT and JHU), discussing recent observations of a jet from a super-massive black hole in the galaxy NGC 3862. Using 20 years of imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope, the scientists were able to track the motion of high-energy plasma in the jet, clearly visible by eye in a movie created from the four epochs of observation. They found that one bright ‘knot’ of plasma in the jet is in the process of colliding with a slower-moving knot just downstream. Colliding knots have long been theorized as a way to accelerate the particles which produce high-energy radiation in many astrophysical jets, but this is the first time such a collision has been observed. The paper appeared in the May 28th online edition of Nature. The UMBC Research News Item is available here. Nature Publication here. The press release was also picked up by the LA times and Time magazine, and many more online publications.