Most Powerful Black Hole Jet Ever Spotted By NASA’s Chandra
![](https://preprod.bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/19gEINYYlq7fT9gh0FOpVwg.jpeg?w=480&h=270&crop=1)
Over 300,000 light years long, a new record!
“Mozart’s music is like an X-ray of your soul — it shows what is there, and what isn’t.” –Isaac Stern
From 500 million light years away, the Chandra X-ray telescope has mapped out a 300,000 light year-long jet coming from the galaxy Pictor A.
![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*ImBq72kRtizyBG7Q.jpg)
Like many active galaxies, it’s powered by a supermassive black hole many millions or even billions of times the mass of our Sun.
![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*HKryPSb_K31w-e06.jpg)
Some of these black holes accelerate and spit out infalling matter, giving rise to intense emissions.
![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*KisJUMiZP0Oo5oaw.jpg)
These span the spectrum from high-energy X-rays down into the low-energy radio.
![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*_dWO5b1HVHrU-lkh.png)
The radio lobes of gas provide a medium for these high-energy X-rays to interact with, creating an intense shock wave where the electrons exceed the speed of sound in the gas.
![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*3_vqOos_UzYQQA7X.jpg)
The “hot spot” at the end is the culmination of this jet, which is caused by electrons being continuously accelerated by the galaxy’s magnetic field.
Other explanations, such as high-energy electrons boosting a CMB photon into the X-ray, apply to some very distant galaxies, but are ruled out here.
![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*rlpk11-BqNKJA0Y0.jpg)
The lack of good optical or ultraviolet data mean we still don’t know whether this is a spiral or an elliptical galaxy.
![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*NxNU-8mdDcBFR7ad.jpg)
Despite these unknowns, Pictor A possesses the largest single X-ray jet in the known Universe.
Mostly Mute Monday tells the story of a single astronomical phenomenon or object primarily in visuals, with no more than 200 words of text.
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