Astronomers have spotted the biggest pair of black hole jets ever seen, spanning 23 million light-years in total length. That's equivalent to lining up 140 Milky Way galaxies back to back.
Published by the editorial team, 19 September 2024
The jet megastructure, nicknamed Porphyrion after a giant in Greek mythology, dates to a time when our universe was 6.3 billion years old, or less than half its present age of 13.8 billion years. These fierce outflows—with a total power output equivalent to trillions of suns—shoot out from above and below a supermassive black hole at the heart of a remote galaxy.
The Porphyrion jet system is the biggest found so far during a sky survey that has revealed a shocking number of the faint megastructures: more than 10,000. This massive population of gargantuan jets was found using LOFAR.
More information about this discovery, can be found on the website of Caltech.