Telescopes spy a monster radio jet streaming from a bright and early object in the universe

An extraordinary discovery has unveiled a colossal radio jet streaming from a quasar, illuminating the early Universe. This radio jet, more than double the width of our Milky Way galaxy, is the largest ever detected in the first billion years of cosmic history.

Spanning about 200,000 light-years, this celestial phenomenon was spotted by telescopes worldwide. Its discovery, made possible by the quasar’s extreme nature, sheds light on distant cosmic events obscured by the remnants of the Big Bang.

The quasar, powering this monumental radio jet, formed during the earliest phases of the Universe when it was only 9% of its current age. Harboring a tremendous amount of energy, this distant object is one of the brightest in the cosmos, aligning with massive galactic cores where gas and dust spiral into a central black hole.

Astronomers have indicated that, despite its enormous size, the quasar’s mass is equivalent to 450 million times that of our sun. Remarkably, the black hole at its core is not particularly massive in comparison to similar phenomena.