Nasa's Chandra detects powerful black hole jet during universe's 'cosmic noon'
In a remarkable cosmic discovery, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has detected a surprisingly powerful jet emerging from a supermassive black hole located 11.6 billion light-years from Earth. This black hole existed during "cosmic noon"—a period roughly three billion years after the Big Bang, when galaxies and black holes grew at record rates.
Working alongside the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers captured X-ray and radio data that reveal the jet's extraordinary reach—over 300,000 light-years—and the extreme speeds of the particles within it, approaching 99% the speed of light.
The black hole's jet became visible because it collided with the dense sea of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation—the ancient light left over from the Big Bang. These high-speed electrons boosted CMB photons into the X-ray range, enabling Chandra to detect them despite the vast distance.
Two black holes, designated J1405+0415 and J1610+1811, were confirmed to have jets traveling at relativistic speeds. Remarkably, the jet from J1610+1811 carries nearly half as much energy as the light from gas orbiting the black hole, highlighting its immense power.
Because of special relativity, jets moving toward Earth appear brighter, creating a detection bias. The research team overcame this challenge by developing a novel statistical model that factors in these relativistic effects. Through thousands of simulations, they estimated the jets' viewing angles—approximately 9° and 11° from Earth's line of sight.
These findings were presented by lead researcher Jaya Maithil of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska. The results will be published in The Astrophysical Journal, with a preprint already available online.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program, with science operations led from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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