Artist’s impression
This image shows the thick ring, or torus, of dust that can obscure the energetic processes that occur near the supermassive black holes that power active galactic nuclei. The FORCAST instrument was used to observe the infrared emission around 11 supermassive black holes with active galactic nuclei located at distances of 100 million light-years and more.
The resulting observations were used to determine the size, opacity, and distribution of dust in each torus. SOFIA observations suggest that the dust distribution is about 30 percent smaller than previously thought.
Additional Information
SOFIA Observations of Dusty Tori
United States
