An international team of astronomers used the state-of-the-art capability of VERA, a Japanese network of radio telescopes operated by NAOJ, to uncover valuable clues about how rapidly growing “young” supermassive black holes form, grow, and possibly evolve into more powerful quasars.
An international research team including the Mizusawa VLBI Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the University of Tokyo, and Nagoya City University has revealed for the first time that the jet from the supermassive black hole in the nearby galaxy M84 loses its narrow shape much closer to the black hole than in other galaxies. This discovery, made possible by high-precision observations with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) in the United States, provides new clues for understanding how black hole jets evolve and why their shapes differ among galaxies.
We have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for an international VLBI network that will combine approximately 20 radio telescopes in the East Asian region in Japan, South Korea, and China to achieve resolution equivalent to a giant radio telescope with a maximum diameter of 5,500 km.