Chandra tracks M87 black hole's evolving jet in finest X-ray detail yet

An international team of astronomers led by Camille Poitras, a Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Laval University, has produced the most detailed X-ray view ever obtained of the jet launched by the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87. By combining observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory acquired between 2012 and 2025 with advanced image-processing techniques, the researchers were able to track the evolution of jet structures with unprecedented detail.