Astronomers have spotted a massive pair of jets releasing material from a distant black hole. The jets are so large they span about 140 Milky Way galaxies in length.

Astronomers have seen the largest jets ever found erupting from a black hole. The giant jet system Porphyrion is 23 million light-years long, equal to 140 side-by-side Milky Way galaxies.

The Porphyrion jets, which come from a supermassive black hole about 7.5 billion light-years from Earth, were found thanks to radio images from the International LOFAR Telescope, which revealed ...

The black hole resides at the heart of a galaxy about 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

Interestingly, Porphyrion’s black hole was in what’s called a radiative-mode state, which is more common in the distant universe. This was unexpected, as radiative-mode black holes weren’t thought to produce such huge jets. This revelation opens up the possibility that there could be many more of these colossal systems yet to be discovered.

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.

Named Porphyrion (another one of those Greek giants), these jets originate from a black hole roughly 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. And they pack quite the punch, delivering a power output ...

Yale astronomer Pieter van Dokkum and a team of researchers have discovered an object in space they call the "Infinity" galaxy—two recently-collided galaxies that, together, look like the symbol for infinity.

The jets, which Hardcastle and his colleagues have named Porphyrion, come from a black hole in a distant galaxy, some 7.5 billion light years from Earth.