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[text/observer.com chen sijia] "distant black hole releases record-breaking jet." according to reuters on september 18, astronomers recently detected two huge jets from a supermassive black hole, with a total length of 7 million parsecs (about 23 million light-years), equivalent to 140 milky way galaxies connected end to end. this is the longest black hole jet discovered by astronomers so far, and the research report was published in the journal nature on the 18th.

the black hole, located at the center of a galaxy about 7.5 billion light-years from earth, is sending out a pair of jets in opposite directions. supermassive black holes exist at the center of most galaxies, including the milky way, and these black holes send out powerful jets of particles moving at nearly the speed of light as they devour matter such as gas, dust or stars.

the pair of jets were discovered by astronomers from the united states and the united kingdom while analyzing images taken by the low frequency array radio telescope (lofar) in the netherlands. the observation data showed that the total length of the pair of jets is about 7 million parsecs (1 parsec is equal to about 3.26 light-years).

the research team named the pair of jets "porphyrion", which comes from the giant in greek mythology. it is the longest black hole jet discovered so far, 30% longer than the longest black hole jet detected before. the research team said that in the past 50 years, the length of black hole jets discovered will not exceed 5 million parsecs.

lofar observes black hole jets 23 million light years long martin oei

"black hole jets like porphyrion are probably some of the most energetic spectacles since the big bang," said martijn oei, an astrophysicist at the california institute of technology and the lead author of the paper.

oy pointed out that the length of the two jets has far exceeded the scope of their galaxies, and the energy released is equivalent to trillions of suns. "such energy is usually released only in the most catastrophic celestial collisions, such as two galaxy clusters containing thousands of galaxies each colliding and merging together."

"jets are thought to form when magnetized matter falls into a rotating black hole," added martin hardcastle, an astrophysicist at the university of hertfordshire in the uk and one of the authors of the paper. "for a jet to persist, there must be a continuous flow of matter falling into the black hole, equivalent to one solar mass per year."

hardcastle said that astronomers have long known about the existence of black hole jets, but this giant structure is very unusual. it is estimated that the pair of jets have existed for 1 billion years.

the researchers also said that such black hole jets can heat interstellar gas, hinder the formation of new stars that require cold gas clouds, and may even destroy habitable planets. oy said the discovery shows that black hole jets can become as large as cosmic structures such as galaxy clusters, "which means that the influence of a single black hole can extend far beyond the galaxy in which it is located."

according to a press release from caltech, the research team's next goal is to study the impact of giant black hole jets on surrounding galaxies.

"the magnetic field on earth enables life to flourish, and we want to understand how it forms," ​​oy said. "we know that the magnetic field is spread throughout the cosmic web, then into galaxies and stars, and ultimately into planets. but the question is: where does it come from? do these giant jets spread magnetic fields across the universe?"

hardcastle said that there should be other undiscovered giant black hole jets in the universe. "we may have only seen the tip of the iceberg. so far, we have only explored about one-eighth of the sky with lofar. most jets may be difficult to detect, and we believe there are more such behemoths."