Largest jets ever seen blasting from a black hole 23 million light-years long!

Astronomers have spotted the largest twin jets ever seen erupting from a black hole.

The jets stretch for around 23 million light-years, well beyond the limits of their host galaxy.

They are seen as they were when the universe was just 6.3 billion years old , around half its current age.

The discovery of such a large system of black hole jets indicates that such outflows may have influenced the evolution of galaxies in the early universe.

Supermassive black hole Porphyrion's jet has been active for about a billion years , scientists say.

It would take an unusually long-lived accretion event to allow it to be active for so long.

The mechanism that allowed this jet to last long enough to reach such lengths in the turbulent early universe is unknown.

The team's next steps will be to investigate how these gigantic black hole jets influence their surrounding galaxies.

Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World , New Scientist , Astronomy Magazine , All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science . He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics . Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University . Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst..