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Astronomers have discovered a massive black hole jet that is three times bigger than the Milky Way. The jet is known as Quasar J1601+3102, and it was first spotted by astronomers using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR). Researchers estimate that the jet spans nearly 200,000 light-years, more than twice the diameter of our own galaxy. It’s the largest black hole jet we’ve discovered to date.
What makes this particular jet so exciting for astronomers is not only its size. It’s also estimated to be 1.2 billion years old. The black hole behind the quasar is believed to have flared out while our universe was still very young, a new study in The Astrophysical Letters revealed. Researchers say that Quasar J1601+3102 would have weighed as much as at least 450 million suns, even back then.
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The massive length and size of this black hole jet suggests that the black hole has continued to pump energy and material into the jet long after the first stars flared to life in the early universe. This discovery goes a long way in supporting current theories about the early universe and the role that black holes might have played in the universe’s expansion.
But discovering this type of jet has only become possible since LOFAR’s creation. The system is made up of more than 50 linked stations from Poland to Ireland. The sheer size of the system allows astronomers to track not only bright knots of material, but also the lower-frequency sections of the jet, too.
This has allowed researchers to uncover more data about the large black hole jet and its origins. In fact, at first, many believed the southern portion of the jet was actually unrelated, and that it would be much smaller than it is. With LOFAR, though, astronomers were able to connect the dots.
Another surprising aspect of this quasar, though, is that the black hole, though large, is not nearly as massive as astronomers might have expected. In fact, it’s actually quite small compared to some other quasar sources we’ve seen in the past. It’s possible there are other quasars like this out there, too.
However, uncovering them is difficult and samples have been scarce because looking back in time to the early universe makes it harder to detect these radio signals as the cosmic microwave background was much brighter in the past.
Previously, astronomers have watched black holes fire off jets of material into space. We’ve even caught hints of runaway black holes spiraling through the galaxy. This discovery, though, will finally help further our understanding of just how black holes shape the galaxies they lie within.
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