Shadow of Supermassive Black Hole’s Torus in IC 5063

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed spectacular large-scale dark and light rays beaming out of the bright center of IC 5063, an active galaxy located 156 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Indus.

The researchers think that an inner-tube-shaped ring, or torus, of dusty material surrounding IC 5063’s central black hole is casting its shadow into space.

According to their scenario, this interplay of light and shadow may occur when light blasted by the supermassive black hole strikes the torus; light streams through gaps in the torus, creating the brilliant cone-shaped rays; however, denser patches in the torus block some of the light, casting long, dark shadows through the galaxy.

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Image credit: Credits: NASA / ESA / Hubble / STScI / W.P. Maksym, CfA.

This Hubble image of the nearby active galaxy IC 5063 reveals a mixture of bright rays and dark shadows coming from the blazing core, home of a supermassive black hole.

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First Observation of Torus Surrounding the Supermassive Black Hole at the Core of Powerful Radio Gal

Astronomers used the National Science Foundation's Karl Jansky Very Large Array to observe the dusty, doughnut-shaped torus surrounding the black hole and accretion disk at the center of a powerful radio galaxy.

Animation depicts how the torus can obscure different features when viewed from different angles. This explains how the same type of "central engine" can appear different, leading to different names for objects seen from different angles.