{"id":793298,"date":"2025-02-04T03:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T08:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=793298"},"modified":"2025-02-04T03:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T08:32:07","slug":"black-holes-shoot-out-energetic-jets-in-the-universe-short-wave-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=793298","title":{"rendered":"Black holes shoot out energetic jets in the universe : Short Wave : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n In 1918, astronomer Heber Curtis identified a black hole jet that seemed to shoot out of M87, a galaxy about 50 million light years away from Earth. \n <\/p>\n
NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI\/AURA)<\/p>\n
In 1918, astronomer Heber Curtis identified a black hole jet that seemed to shoot out of M87, a galaxy about 50 million light years away from Earth.<\/p>\n
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NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI\/AURA)<\/p>\n
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Black holes are notorious for gobbling up, well, everything<\/em>. <\/p>\n
“They are often seen as sort of cosmic vacuum cleaners, just sucking in all the material gas and stars that stray close,” says Priyamvada Natarajan, an astrophysicist at Yale University. <\/p>\n
They’re icons of destruction, ruthless voids, ambivalent abysses from which nothing can return. <\/p>\n
At least, according to pop culture. According to science, there’s a whole world of nuance.<\/p>\n
“What is counterintuitive is that we do see very powerful jets of material that are actually expelled from them as well,” Natarajan says. <\/p>\n
These jets that shoot out from supermassive black holes, like the one at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, are sometimes millions of light years long. They carry huge amounts of energy and radiation.<\/p>\n
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