Astronomers have captured a ghostly image of an ancient supermassive black hole shooting a giant energy jet into the early universe. The ethereal structure is only visible thanks to the "afterglow" of the Big Bang and a crucial NASA space telescope that could soon be prematurely switched off forever.
The striking image shows the light of quasar J1610+1811, shining from around 11.6 billion light-years from Earth, during the "cosmic noon" — a period of the universe between 2 billion and 3 billion years after the Big Bang. Quasars are supermassive black holes that shoot out giant, lightsaber-like beams of energy perpendicular to their swirling accretion disks. However, until now, researchers have not had a proper look at J1610+1811's energy jet, despite discovering the object back in 2018.
