There is a type of black hole system known as a microquasar, wherein a black hole exists along with a companion star from which it accretes material. They are incredibly useful tools in studying the Universe, as they are similar to their much larger quasar brothers.
Now the most powerful microquasar to date has been detected. With jets of hot gas, twisted magnetic fields and very high energy particles reaching more than 1,000 light-years from the black hole, it easily doubles the size of the next largest microquasar.
According to the report from scientists, while will appear in print in the journal Nature, "large nebula S26 in the nearby galaxy NGC 7793 is powered by a black hole with a pair of collimated jets." This system lies about 12 million light-years from Earth, which in universal terms is close compared to the 13 billion or so light-years that many of the quasars lie.
Even though the black hole is only a few times the mass of our Sun, it seems to be producing an incredible amount of energy. The key is to understand what differentiates this microquasar from other systems detected previously.
Hopefully this new object will allow scientists to better understand the nature of jets in black hole systems, and extend the physics principles to the distant quasars. The more we learn about these dynamic systems, the more we can infer about the nature of galaxy formation and possible about the formation of the Universe in general.
Comments