Images of this phenomenon, taken by radio telescopes in Europe and the U.S., are the most detailed ever of the center of the galaxy M87, some 50 million light-years from Earth. Material at the center of M87 is drawn inward by the black hole's strong gravitational grip. This material forms a rapidly spinning flat disk, called an accretion disk. Astronomers believe that some material escapes along the poles of this disk, forming a wide jet. Magnetic fields in the disk may pinch the jet into narrow beams.
Black holes are compact, dense powerhouses at the core of galaxies.
Astronomers always had speculated that the jet had to be made by some mechanism relatively near the black hole, but as they looked closer to the center, they kept seeing an already-formed beam. Now astronomers have shown that M87's jet is formed within a few tenths of a light-year of the galaxy's core, presumed to be a black hole three billion times more massive than the Sun.