“Astronomers Capture First Image of Cosmic Jet Near Supermassive Black Hole in Messier 87”

Astronomers have seen a striking phenomenon in a giant galaxy far from Earth. For the first time, a so-called cosmic jet near a black hole has been captured on image, reports The Guardian.

Cosmic jets are bundled jet streams of matter in space, such as gas and hot plasma. Scientists cannot yet explain how they originate. Experts only know that they blast through space at about the speed of light. A lot of energy is released.

The photo was taken near the black hole in the galaxy Messier 87, which is about 55 million light-years from Earth. That supermassive black hole is 6.5 billion times as massive as our sun. Its diameter is at least 100 billion kilometers.

The gravity around a black hole is so strong that nothing can escape. Not even light. Still, astronomers occasionally see cosmic jets streaking from the vicinity of black holes. They may arise around the so-called event horizon: the boundary above which some light can still escape.

With the photo, astronomers hope to be able to further investigate how cosmic jets are formed. It is just impossible to see where the jet came from. “But we can investigate how parts of the jet were accelerated and heated up,” one of the researchers told the British newspaper.