What is a blazar? In the center of most galaxies lurks a supermassive black hole. Nothing escapes a black hole, not even light. As black holes eat up everything that comes anywhere near them, an accretion disc of plasma forms around the singularity. Every once in awhile that plasma shoot out at close to the speed of light. A black hole that shoots out these plasma jets is a blazar. Why blazar?
Under the umbrella of blazars are all an active galactic nucleus with a jet composed of ionized matter traveling at nearly the speed of light. That category includes BL Lac objects and some quasars. Squish that together and you get blazar.
Scientists have visualized black hole blazar plasma jets in unprecedented detail. More from The Guardian:
Crucially, the team say, the image is the highest resolution yet of a jet around a supermassive black hole, meaning the researchers can for the first time investigate what is happening near the base of the jet. Indeed a close-up image shows a blob near the black hole that appears to be slightly off the axis of the rest of the jet.
The image, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope – a huge research effort involving a network of eight radio telescopes, and a large team of researchers, around the world.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: MicroPython Pico W Bluetooth, CircuitPython 8.0.4 and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
