Abstract
A brief introduction to the study of M 87 is presented. Attention is drawn to the surprisingly low bolometric power of the black hole. It is also argued that recent observations are quite constraining with respect to the origin of the jet power and the cause of its initial collimation. The bright jet knots provide a powerful diagnostic for constraining the character of jet flows as well as the properties of the ambient interstellar medium in the central few kpc of the nucleus. As it has been studied in such great detail throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, M 87 may have much to teach us about active galactic nuclei in general.
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Blandford, R. (1999). Introducing M 87. In: Röser, HJ., Meisenheimer, K. (eds) The Radio Galaxy Messier 87. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 530. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0106413
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0106413
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