Astronomers have found the largest jets ever seen erupting from a black hole. The two observed jets span about 23 million light-years, well beyond the limits of the host galaxy. In other words, the two jets are comparable in length to 140 Milky Way-like galaxies lined up end to end.
The jets erupt from a supermassive black hole at the heart of a galaxy 7.5 billion light-years away, meaning scientists have only seen them for 6.3 billion years, or half of current age. Furthermore, the jets emit trillions of times more energy per second than our Sun.
“We’ve known about these structures for some time, but the ones in the present case are interesting for three reasons. First, they are the largest yet, reaching 20 million light-years across, meaning they stretch from the center of the host galaxy into the void between galaxies and galaxy clusters.” , explained to Martin Hardcastle of the University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom.
One of the strongest structures known
“Secondly, it is one of the most powerful (ed. structures) known, with a rapid rate of matter falling into the black hole. And finally, it’s found at a time when the Universe was about half its current age and would have been much more violent,” Hardcastle added.
The giant jets also got a name to match. The team that discovered them decided to name the megastructure Porphyrion, recalling one of Gaia’s giants from Greek mythology. Porphyrion was the largest of the giants along with Alcyoneus, after which the next large pair of , discovered in 2022 by the same team of scientists, was named. The Alcyoneus pair is equivalent to about 100 galaxies similar to the Milky Way.
“Jets can spread huge amounts of energy”
The discovery of such a large system of jets, detailed in a study published in the journal , suggests that such energy flows may have influenced the evolution of galaxies in the early Universe.
“Astronomers believe that galaxies and the black holes at their center evolve together, and a key aspect is that the jets can spread huge amounts of energy that affect the growth of their host galaxies and other galaxies around them. This discovery shows that their effects can extend further than we thought,” added George Djorgovski, professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology () in the US.
“Every place in the Universe could have been affected”
To find Porphyrion’s parent galaxy, the researchers used the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) instrument in India, as well as data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) project, operated from the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, USA.
The team also used the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii. “Until now, these giant jet systems of the recent Universe. If distant jets like these can reach the cosmic web, then every place in the Universe could have been affected by black hole activity at some point in cosmic time,” the scientists added.
