At the center of most galaxies is a supermassive black hole. While many aspects of these objects remain mysterious, it’s clear that they gobble up immense amounts of energy and matter. This forms an accretion disc of plasma, but sometimes that plasma also shoots out from the magnetic poles of the black hole at nearly the speed of light. With the help of the Event Horizon Telescope, scientists have imaged one of those plasma jets in a level of detail that should lend itself to deeper insight into how they form, how supermassive black holes consume energy and more.

The image shows a bright oval, which astronomers believe to be the black hole’s accretion disc, as well as a darker stream of energy shooting out from it. The fact that the jet is pointed toward Earth gives scientists a better viewing angle of a jet than normal. We’ve seen a similar image captured from the galaxy M87 in the visible light spectrum, but this image captures the phenomenon in infrared, meaning astronomers can better understand how hot the matter around the black hole is.