The Milky Way is often seen as a medium-sized galaxy in the universe, home to approximately 200 million stars and a massive black hole situated at its core. Lately, this black hole has started emitting energy in all directions—like something inside is trying to do the impossible: break free from the void. These cosmic entities cannot be outrun or destroyed, and once their gravitational pull locks onto something nearby, there is nothing to be done—unless that object can exceed the speed of light. However, according to studies, not even light stands a chance of escaping.
The impact of black holes on the discovery
Scientists have debated the power of black holes since their discovery in the 18th century, but what truly happens in the swirling disk around them is still a mystery. Recently, while observing Sagittarius A—the black hole at the center of the Milky Way—researchers detected something unusual.
Even though black holes themselves cannot be seen—and their presence is usually only known through the way they warp space and time—Sagittarius A has been visible. Throughout 2023 and 2024, scientists witnessed something out of the ordinary: flickers of light coming from the dust surrounding it.
Jets larger than the Milky Way
Astronomers recently spotted something massive—a jet of energy blasting out from a black hole that existed when the universe was still in its early days. Because of how light travels across space, looking farther into the universe means looking deeper into the past. And this particular black hole? Its jet was seen as it looked just 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang.
The discovery began with the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a network of radio telescopes spread across Europe. It picked up signs of the jet, which spans over 200,000 light-years—twice the width of the Milky Way. That makes it the largest radio jet ever seen from such an early period in the universe. To confirm it, researchers used infrared data from the Gemini telescope and optical readings from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. The evidence pointed to something remarkable: a two-lobed jet blasting matter into space.
Why black holes are shooting instead of consuming matter?
That might sound strange as black holes are supposed to suck things in, but at the heart of most galaxies, including the Milky Way, lie supermassive black holes. When matter falls into them, it doesn’t go quietly. The friction heats things up so much that the core of the galaxy lights up—and, sometimes, shoots out powerful jets in the process.
These glowing galactic centers are called quasars. We have seen them nearby. But spotting one from this far back in time gives scientists a rare window into how galaxies evolved. The team behind the discovery, led by NOIR Lab’s Annie Gloudemans, was focused on finding early-universe quasars with powerful radio jets—an effort that could shed light on when these jets first appeared and how they influenced the growth of galaxies like the Milky Way.
How did the researchers figure this out?
To find more information about it, the team needed to measure the quasar’s size and how fast it was devouring matter. That required spotting a key emission in its light signature: the Mg II (magnesium) line, which normally shows up in ultraviolet wavelengths. However, because this quasar’s light traveled billions of years through space, the expansion of the universe stretched it into the infrared spectrum.
Named J1601+3102, the quasar formed when the universe was just 1.2 billion years old. While some quasars tip the scales at billions of solar masses, this one is estimated to be around 450 million times the mass of our Sun – and this is not even the biggest star in the Milky Way.