The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
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Image List

The Eye of Sauron: CfA Astronomers Play Key Role in Cosmic Discovery, Solving a Long-Standing Blazar Mystery

  • The “Eye of Sauron,” a striking image of the plasma jet in the blazar PKS 1424+240, seen head-on. The jet is threaded by a nearly perfect magnetic field, visualized in orange. Due to special relativity, high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos are strongly beamed toward Earth, even though the jet appears slow-moving from our perspective.

    The “Eye of Sauron,” a striking image of the plasma jet in the blazar PKS 1424+240, seen head-on. The jet is threaded by a nearly perfect magnetic field, visualized in orange. Due to special relativity, high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos are strongly beamed toward Earth, even though the jet appears slow-moving from our perspective.

    Y.Y. Kovalev et al.

    Low Resolution Image

  • Looking inside the plasma jet cone of the blazar PKS 1424+240 with a radio telescope of the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (NSF VLBA). 

    Looking inside the plasma jet cone of the blazar PKS 1424+240 with a radio telescope of the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (NSF VLBA). 

    NSF/AUI/NRAO/B. Saxton/Y.Y. Kovalev et al.

    Low Resolution Image