6
June 2002
Astrophysics: Jet power
Accretion onto black holes is thought to power the relativistic jets in both active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and the 'microquasar' binary systems located in our Galaxy. This relationship has been demonstrated for microquasars but until now there have been insufficient data to do the same for AGNs. Now three years of intensive monitoring of the X-ray and radio emission of the Seyfert-like radio galaxy 3C120 confirm that the jets from this AGN are powered by an accreting black hole and that this AGN resembles a scaled-up version of a microquasar. The 'core' of the radio emission from 3C120 lies at least 0.3 parsecs away from the accretion disk.
Observational evidence for the accretion-disk origin for a radio jet in an active galaxy
ALAN P. MARSCHER, SVETLANA G. JORSTAD, JOS�-LUIS G�MEZ, MARGO F. ALLER, HARRI TER�SRANTA, MATTHEW L. LISTER & ALASTAIR M. STIRLING
Nature 417, 625–627 (6 June 2002)
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