Black holes blast cosmic jets at nearly light speed

Supermassive black holes at galaxy centers launch powerful relativistic jets, streams of plasma traveling almost at the speed of light. These jets form when matter swirling into the black hole creates intense magnetic fields, accelerating charged particles into narrow beams. First seen in the 1950s, these cosmic firehoses, like the one from galaxy M87 spanning 5,000 light-years, reveal how black holes grow and shape their host galaxies. They inject energy into interstellar gas, influencing star formation and even potentially distributing energy across the early universe.