The Largest Radio Jet Ever Seen in the Early Universe | NOIRLab

The Largest Radio Jet Ever Seen in the Early Universe | NOIRLab

Cosmoview Episode 95: From decades of astronomical observations scientists know that most galaxies contain massive black holes at their centers. The gas and dust falling into these black holes liberates an enormous amount of energy as a result of friction, forming luminous galactic cores, called quasars, that expel jets of energetic matter. These jets can be detected with radio telescopes up to large distances. In our local Universe these radio jets are not uncommon, with a small fraction being found in nearby galaxies, but they have remained elusive in the distant, early Universe until now. 

Using a combination of telescopes, astronomers have discovered a distant, two-lobed radio jet that spans an astonishing 200,000 light-years at least — twice the width of the Milky Way. This is the largest radio jet ever found this early in the history of the Universe. The jet was first identified using the international Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) Telescope, a network of radio telescopes throughout Europe.

Using in part the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab, astronomers have characterized the largest ever early-Universe radio jet. Historically, such large radio jets have remained elusive in the distant Universe. With these observations, astronomers have valuable new insights into when the first jets formed in the Universe and how they impacted the evolution of galaxies.

Credit:
Images and Videos: LOFAR / DECaLS / DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys / LBNL / DOE / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA/ M. Garlick / ASTRON/ S. Goebel / N. Bartmann (NSF NOIRLab)
Image Processing: M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)
Duration: 1 minute, 20 seconds
Release Date: Feb. 6, 2025

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