Overview
- Using JWST’s NIRISS in Aperture Masking Interferometer mode, astronomers produced the first extragalactic infrared interferometric observation from space and Webb’s sharpest view of a black hole’s surroundings.
- The study finds that roughly 87% of the near‑core infrared emission comes from the compact, donut‑shaped dusty torus feeding the black hole, with less than 1% arising from outflowing material.
- The findings, led by Enrique Lopez‑Rodriguez, were published in Nature Communications in January 2026.
- Circinus, a spiral galaxy about 13 million light‑years away, has a dust‑shrouded nucleus that ground‑based telescopes could not resolve because of atmospheric blurring and bright starlight.
- Researchers plan to apply this technique to a larger sample of active galaxies, targeting roughly a dozen to two dozen black holes to test how typical Circinus is and to connect accretion, torus mass, and outflows to overall power.