You deserve a daily dose of good news. For the latest in science and the night sky, subscribe to EarthSky\u2019s free daily newsletter.<\/strong><\/p>\n All over the universe, black holes shoot jets out into space. And by coincidence, some of those jets are going to be aimed toward us. On September 22, 2026, astronomers said that \u2014 for the first \u2014 time they\u2019ve found a black hole jet aimed toward Earth in our own galaxy<\/em>.<\/p>\n They\u2019re calling this black hole system a microblazar<\/em>. The black hole has a companion star that\u2019s feeding material into the black hole. The black hole later expels that material in two jets, rushing outward at three quarters of the speed of light. One of those jets is aimed at us. The other we can see only because it\u2019s smashing into a nearby molecular cloud, causing it to light up.<\/p>\n The journal Astronomy & Astrophysics<\/em> has accepted the astronomers\u2019 study for publication. The researchers pre-published it on arXiv on September 1, 2026.<\/p>\n Astronomers believe supermassive black holes lie at the heart of most galaxies. And many of those black holes power jets, some of which are aimed toward Earth. Astronomers call them blazars. But they\u2019ve long suspected microblazars \u2014 with jets pointed at us from black holes powered by stellar<\/em> companions \u2014 also exist. They just hadn\u2019t found one before.<\/p>\n And now a team of astronomers from Spain, Netherlands and Argentina says it has spotted a microblazar, just 12,000 light-years away. They\u2019ve named it IRAS 18293-0941. IRAS 18293-0941 is believed to consist of a black hole that a star orbits every 11.38 days. The black hole is sucking in some of the star\u2019s material and then expelling it in the two jets.<\/p>\n Lead author Josep Mart\u00ed from University of Ja\u00e9n said: <\/p>\n Everything about IRAS 18293-0941 was hiding in plain sight. It sits behind so much dust that it is essentially invisible in ordinary optical images. It was catalogued decades ago and then more or less forgotten.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The astronomers saw that a star was slightly flickering. Then they used radio telescopes to discover what looked like a jet pointing only toward Earth. But further investigation found the existence of a second jet pointed away from us, thanks to a bubble and a glow. The opposite-facing jet is blasting through a cloud of gas and dust. It has carved out a bubble and on the far wall of the bubble it is heating up the gas and dust, causing it to glow. <\/p>\n How did the astronomers know the jet is from the star\u2019s vicinity and not farther away, like from a distant galaxy? Combining radio and optical observations helped them pinpoint it. <\/p>\n Co-author Benito Marcote from the Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC, JIVE, in The Netherlands said: <\/p>\n This was the moment the result became solid. The resolution achieved by the European VLBI Network position together with the known position of the star from the Gaia satellite confirmed it: the jet belongs to the stellar system.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The jet is so strong that where it hits the molecular cloud it produces high-energy gamma rays. Co-author Pedro Luque-Escamilla from the University of Ja\u00e9n said: <\/p>\n The elegance is that the accelerator engine and the target are two different objects, tens of parsecs apart. The jet does the accelerating. The cloud does the shining.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This area where the jet hits a molecular cloud likely accelerates particles to ultra-high energies, say the scientists. It might even accelerate them to petaelectronvolts. A petaelectronvolt (PeV) is equal to 1 quadrillion (1015<\/sup>) electronvolts of energy. So this would make microblazars one of the most powerful particle accelerators in the galaxy. <\/p>\n Scientists predicted the existence of microblazars 30 years ago. Now they are happy to finally have some confirmation. They think microblazars could play a part in the evolution of galaxies.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s next? The researchers plan to look deeper in an attempt to see the jet evolve. They\u2019d also like to learn more about how the jet and molecular cloud interact. And, of course, they hope to find more microblazars in our galaxy.<\/p>\n Bottom line: For the first time, scientists have discovered a microblazar, or a black hole jet in our own galaxy pointed at Earth. Don\u2019t worry, there is nothing to fear from it!<\/p>\n Source: A Galactic microblazar as a potential accelerator of ultra-high-energy particles<\/p>\n Via NRF\/ SARAO<\/p>\n <\/div>\nA black hole jet is aimed at us \u2026 and it\u2019s in our galaxy<\/h3>\n
The discovery of a microblazar<\/h3>\n
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A high-speed jet pointed at Earth<\/h3>\n
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An impressive black hole jet<\/h3>\n
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Confirming a 30-year-old theory<\/h3>\n
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