Scientists have identified the largest-known radiation jets ever recorded, emitted from a supermassive black hole. These jets, named Porphyrion after a giant in Greek mythology, span approximately 23 million light-years and emit more energy than 100 galaxies combined, or trillions of suns.
According to a study published in Nature, Porphyrion’s jets are nearly twice the size of previously known black hole jets, which were thought to be limited to about 16 million light-years in length. This finding reveals new insights into the potential reach of black holes, showing they can influence regions far beyond their host galaxies.
“The key finding is that jets from black holes can, if circumstances are right, become as large as the universe’s major cosmic structures (galaxy clusters, cosmic filaments, cosmic voids),” Martijn Oei, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, told Newsweek. “This means that individual black holes can have a sphere of influence that extends way beyond the galaxy in which they reside.”
The immense power of these jets, estimated at around 10^39 watts, results from material being drawn into the black hole’s accretion disk, which heats up and ejects the energy at near-light speeds. Oei explains, “The two jets combined have a jet power of 10^39 watts! That’s equivalent to the energy output of trillions of suns, or ~100 galaxies.”
The Porphyrion jets were detected by the International LOFAR Telescope, which also found around 10,000 other large jet structures, though none matched Porphyrion’s size. Before this discovery, the largest known system was Alcyoneus, spanning around 100 Milky Ways.
The black hole producing these jets is located 7.5 billion light-years away, and the jets have likely been active since the universe was about 6.3 billion years old. Oei noted, “Another key finding is that such very long jets can apparently thrive in the first half of the universe’s existence, whereas most of the long jets known so far have been found in the last few billion years of the universe’s life.”
The researchers aim to continue studying the Porphyrion jets to understand how they grew so large. Oei speculated, “We know from simulations that jets of higher power have more stability. The higher the jet power, not only the more stable are the jets, but they can also reach further in the same amount of time.”
As the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey expands its coverage of the northern sky, researchers hope to discover more large jets like Porphyrion. “We might find that the circumstances are less special than we thought, and more Porphyrion-like jet systems lie waiting to be discovered,” Oei said.
This discovery offers a glimpse into the extraordinary power of supermassive black holes and their potential to influence the cosmos on a massive scale.
