An international astronomy team captured the most detailed view yet of the OJ 287 galaxy’s core, revealing two merging supermassive black holes and a sharply curved plasma jet.
October 14, 2025
Source:
NASA Space News
Scientists Capture Unmatched Detail Inside OJ 287
An international collaboration has produced the sharpest-ever image of the mysterious blazar galaxy OJ 287, located some 5 billion light-years from Earth. The breakthrough comes from a virtual telescope, created by combining the RadioAstron satellite with ground-based radio observatories using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) [Phys.org].
Key Discoveries
A sharply curved, ribbon-like plasma jet, never seen before in such detail, emerges from the galaxy’s core [ScienceDaily].
The image provides the strongest visual evidence for two merging supermassive black holes at the heart of OJ 287 [EurekAlert].
"This kind of resolution is a huge leap for radio astronomy and black hole science."
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Source:
ScienceDaily
Blazar OJ 287: A Unique Black Hole Laboratory
OJ 287 stands out among blazars for its extreme luminosity and variable brightness, thought to be powered by its binary supermassive black hole system [Wikipedia]. Periodic flaring in its core has intrigued astronomers for decades, with the latest image confirming longstanding suspicions about ongoing merger activity [Heidelberg University] .
Jet Structure and Shockwaves
Sections of OJ 287’s jet reach temperatures near 10 trillion kelvin, among the highest known in the universe.
Researchers identified shockwaves within the jet, matching previous gamma-ray flare events and confirming predictions about how black hole interactions can drive extreme cosmic outbursts [SciTechDaily].
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Owl Connected
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