Black hole jets are powerful streams of particles and magnetic fields ejected from the regions surrounding supermassive black holes. These jets, often spanning hundreds of thousands of light-years, play a crucial role in shaping the environments around galaxies by injecting energy into the intergalactic medium.

Scientists have discovered the longest pair of jets streaming from a black hole in a distant galaxy. Black holes eat most space debris that falls their way.

Astronomers have spotted the biggest pair of black hole jets ever seen, spanning 23 million light-years in total length. That's equivalent to lining up 140 Milky Way galaxies back to back. Astronomers have spotted the biggest pair of black hole jets ever seen,

At 23 million light-years long, the black hole jets are the largest yet seen. How big is 23 million light-years, you ask? It’s the equivalent of 140 Milky Ways lined up end-to-end. The study describing the jet megastructure, dubbed Porphyrion after a mythological Greek giant, is published today in Nature.

An artist's illustration of the longest black hole jet system ever observed. Nicknamed Porphyrion after a mythological Greek giant, these jets span roughly 7 megaparsecs, or 23 million light- years. That is equivalent to lining up 140 Milky Way galaxies back-to-back. Credit: E. Wernquist / D. Nelson (IllustrisTNG Collaboration) / M. Oei

We are seeing a single black hole that produces a structure of a scale similar to that of cosmic filaments and voids," astronomer Martijn Oei of Leiden University in the Netherlands and Caltech told ScienceAlert.

Now, researchers are getting a clearer picture of just how far outside of the galaxy their influence can reach. A new study describes the largest-ever jets observed, extending across a total distance of 23 million light-years (seven megaparsecs).

Spanning 23 million light years, or 220 Milky Way galaxies, a set of giant, newly discovered black hole jets known as Porphyrion may change our understanding of black holes and the structure of the un