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Doughnut-shaped object surrounding supermassive black hole
Artist's conception of a dusty, doughnut-shaped object surrounding the supermassive black hole at the core of one of the most powerful radio galaxies in the universe -- Cygnus A; the disk of material orbiting the black hole; and jets of material ejected by the disk at the center of a galaxy. Astronomers used the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to make this first direct image of the dusty, doughnut-shaped feature.
Learn more about this research in the NSF News From the Field story VLA makes first direct image of key feature of powerful radio galaxies. (Date image taken: unknown; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: Oct. 2, 2019)
Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/National Science Foundation
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