By Dan Satherley
A supermassive black hole has been spotted ejecting a jet of material into space at nearly the speed of light.
What's even more impressive is that the trail of bright orange light is 2 million light years long and at least 100 times the size of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
Snapped by the Australia Telescope Compact Array radio telescope, the photos shows the jet has formed a pattern similar to those seen in jet engine exhausts. "Massive jets like this one have been studied for decades, since the beginning of radio astronomy, but we still don't understand exactly how they are produced or what they're made of," says Dr Leith Godfrey of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research.
"If the brighter patches are caused by the same process in astronomical jets as they are in earthly jet engines, then the distance between them can give us important information about the power of the jet and the density of the surrounding space."
Each of the dark patches in the jet is wider than our entire galaxy.
"If we want to understand how galaxies form and grow, we need to understand these jets," says Dr Godfrey. "They are extremely powerful and are believed to stop stars forming in their parent galaxy, limiting how big the galaxies can grow and effecting how the universe looks today."
It's still not known what the jet is made of. This particular jet is emitting more X-rays than astronomers expected.
"Our new find is a step forward in understanding how these giant objects emit so much X-ray radiation, and indirectly, will help us understand how the jet came to be," says Jim Lovell from the University of Tasmania.
The findings have been published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
3 News
source: newshub archive
