Dr Sadie Jones

The images here were taken of a super-massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy NGC 4051 with the VLA radio telescope. The goal of my research is to understand the relationship, if any, between the central black hole and the surrounding environment.

The centre of the galaxy was imaged every ten days to see if the radio core (the darkest part, at the centre of the image) was changing in brightness over time. If the core got brighter over a few days this meant that particles were being injected into the jets at a higher rate than normal. We think the radio structure seen diagonally from the core (black hole) is a result of jets of particles, which are emitted from near the black hole due to strong magnetic fields. This blackhole activity occurred 49 million years ago.