A team of astronomers has captured a stunning image of the “Eye of Sauron” – a blazar, a type of active galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole. The discovery helps solve a decade-long puzzle behind an unusually bright emission of high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos from this object.
Located billions of light-years away, the blazar PKS 1424+240 had baffled astronomers due to its slow-moving radio jet. However, 15 years of ultra-precise radio observations revealed a deep image of the jet at unparalleled resolution. The team’s reconstruction showed a near-perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet pointing almost straight at Earth.
This alignment caused the jet’s high-energy emission to be dramatically amplified by special relativity, making it one of the brightest sources of gamma rays and cosmic neutrinos observed. The team used polarized radio signals to map out the structure of the jet’s magnetic field, revealing its likely helical or toroidal shape.
The discovery confirms that supermassive black holes are not only powerful accelerators of electrons but also of protons – the origin of high-energy neutrinos. This finding strengthens the link between relativistic jets, high-energy neutrinos, and the role of magnetic fields in shaping cosmic accelerators, marking a milestone in multimessenger astronomy.
The study’s lead author, Yuri Kovalev, described the image as “absolutely stunning.” The research was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2025-08-astronomers-eye-sauron-deep-space.html