Astronomers have discovered a colossal jet from a supermassive black hole in the Draco constellation, named Porphyrion, located about 7.3–7.5 billion light-years from Earth. Stretching 23 million light-years in length—140 times the diameter of the Milky Way—it is the largest known jet of its kind.
Porphyrion formed between 4.4 and 6.3 billion years after the Big Bang, the result of prolonged activity from an as-yet-unidentified supermassive black hole. These jets are streams of plasma ejected at near-light speeds. Previously, scientists believed that jets of such immense length couldn’t exist due to magnetohydrodynamic instabilities that would typically disrupt the plasma under the influence of magnetic fields.
This discovery challenges existing theories about the behavior of supermassive black hole jets and their interaction with their surroundings. Porphyrion likely played a major role in distributing energy and matter in the early universe, influencing galaxy formation across vast distances. Scientists hope that future observations using telescopes like the SKA will reveal the mechanisms that allow such enormous jets to remain stable over cosmic time and space.
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