The Most Distant X Ray Jet
Credit & Copyright: A. Siemiginowska (CfA)
et al.,
CXC,
NASA
Illustration by M.Weiss
(CXC)
Explanation:
A false-color
x-ray
image inset at upper left reveals emission
from a cosmic jet of high-energy particles, 100,000 light-years
in length, emerging
from
quasar GB1508+5714.
An estimated 12 billion (12,000,000,000) light-years away,
this appears to be the most distant energetic jet in the
known Universe.
Astrophysical jets of many sizes seem to be produced in a range of
environments where significant accretion, or infalling matter is
thought to arrange itself
in a disk, from contracting
star-forming
clouds to supermassive black holes in active
galactic nuclei.
Here, as depicted in the illustration, the accretion disk
is thought to surround a
supermassive black hole, accelerating
particles to near the
speed of light in two jets at right
angles to the disk itself.
In the case of
this quasar,
the jet tilted towards us is visible in
x-rays as the particles collide with low energy photons from the
cosmic
background radiation.
The collisions boost the photons to higher x-ray energies and
scatter some of them in our direction.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
