An international team of scientists that includes two Washington University researchers have discovered very high energy gamma rays coming from an area close to a supermassive black hole.

The discovery took place in a galaxy, M87, which is about 50 million light years from earth. At its center is a black hole more than six billion times larger than the sun.

In 1998, scientists found that M87 was emitting flares of gamma rays a trillion times more energetic than visible light, but could not pinpoint where in the galaxy the energy was coming from.

Now, using a worldwide combination of telescopes, have determined the rays are coming from a region very close to the black holes at its core.

“Pinning down this location addresses what was an open question and provides important clues for understanding how such highly energetic emissions are produced in the jets of active galaxies,” said Matthias Beilicke, a post-doc research associate at Wash U.

M87 is the largest galaxy in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, at the enter of a supercluster of galaxies that includes the Milky Way. The black hole in M87 has an “event horizon” from which matter cannot escape, roughly twice the size of our solar system.