This Massive Black Hole Is Blasting a Jet at 99% the Speed of Light video

This Massive Black Hole Is Blasting a Jet at 99% the Speed of Light video

By Seeker

For the first time ever, Chandra X-ray Observatory observations show that sections of a jet are moving at greater than 99 percent the speed of light. A jet is a cloud of high-speed, high energy particles spewed out from the center of a black hole. And in this case, the black hole in question is M87*.

M87* exists in the center of the enormous elliptical galaxy Messier 87, and is roughly 55 million light-years away. Astronomers have been observing the supermassive black hole for some time now, watching M87*’s jet of material for years in different wavelengths including radio, optical and x-ray.

And just last year, the Event Horizon Telescope captured the first-ever image of a black hole: an image of M87*, which helped contribute to the black holes fame.

Astronomers have announced that M87* has now been observed shooting jets of physical material out into space at extreme speeds that might break the cosmic speed limit.

So how fast is the material actually moving and what causes the jets in the first place?