A team of astronomers has detected a colossal radio jet emanating from a quasar that existed within the first billion years of the universe, providing a rare glimpse into the cosmos’ infancy, The Associated Press reports.
The monstrous jet, stretching twice the width of our own Milky Way galaxy, represents the largest radio wave structure ever observed from such an early epoch in the universe. The findings, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, shed new light on the formation and evolution of early galaxies and supermassive black holes.
Radio jets are relatively common phenomena in the modern universe, but have proven elusive in the distant, early universe due to the obscuring effects of the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang. This discovery marks a significant breakthrough in overcoming these observational challenges.
The double-sided radio jet is estimated to span at least 200,000 light-years, a staggering distance given that one light-year equates to 5.8 trillion miles. Telescopes across Europe, Hawaii, and Texas contributed to the observations that led to this discovery.
The quasar powering the jet was only discovered in recent years and dates back to a time when the universe was just 9% of its current age, some 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang. Quasars are among the brightest objects in the universe, fueled by supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies that are actively consuming surrounding gas and dust. As this material spirals into the black hole, it releases immense amounts of energy, making quasars exceptionally luminous.
Interestingly, the mass of this particular quasar is estimated to be equivalent to 450 million times the mass of our sun, while its black hole is considered to be “not particularly massive.”
