Milky Way’s First Microblazar Aims a Jet at Earth
A stream of plasma is racing toward Earth at about three quarters of the speed of light. Astronomers say it comes from an object that sat in their catalogs for decades without anyone looking closely.
The object is a microblazar, the first one reported in the Milky Way. A blazar is an active galactic nucleus, powered by a supermassive black hole, that throws out high-speed jets. Scientists long suspected that small versions exist inside our own galaxy, but nobody had confirmed one until now.
How it works
The system lies about 12,000 light-years away and holds a star and a black hole in orbit around each other. They sit so close that the black hole pulls matter off the star. The black hole swallows part of that material and blasts the rest out in a jet. In this case, the jet points at us.
Why nobody noticed
Astronomer Josep Martí of the University of Jaén in Spain led the study. He said the object sits behind so much dust that standard optical images barely show it. Astronomers catalogued it decades ago and then more or less forgot it.
What comes next
Researchers now want to learn how the system evolved, how its jets interact with the interstellar medium, and whether more systems like it exist in the galaxy. The study appeared as a preprint on September 1 and has been accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, so it has not finished peer review yet.
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