The Event Horizon Telescope made history on April 10 when it captured the first image of a supermassive black hole’s event horizon at the heart of galaxy M87. While there’s only one other target close enough to image that way – the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way – there are plenty of other targets where EHT’s sharp gaze can still make breakthroughs.
Astronomers are proposing to use EHT, as well as another global network of radio telescopes called the Global mm-VLBI Array, to image the jet of a blazar named PKS 1510-089 that sits more than 4 billion light-years away. A blazar is one of many names for a black hole that is actively consuming material, resulting in high-energy jets shooting out of the top or bottom of the black hole. With a blazar, the jets are pointed almost directly at Earth, making them especially bright.
