The brightest blazar was found. Its jet is directed towards the Earth

Very Long Baseline Array - an antenna array with ultra-long bases - a radio interferometer belonging to the National

US Radio Astronomy Observatory.The VLBA consists of ten radio telescopes controlled remotely from a control center located in Socorro, New Mexico. It recently revealed previously unseen features in a jet of material ejected at 3/4 the speed of light from the core of a galaxy about 12.8 billion light-years from Earth. The galaxy, named PSO J0309+27, is a blazar with a jet directed towards Earth. It is the brightest radio-emitting blazar ever seen at this distance. It is also the second brightest blazar emitting X-rays at this distance.

Spingola and others; Bill Saxton, NRAO / AUI / NSF.

This image shows the brightest radio emission.comes from the galactic core in the lower right corner. The jet is propelled by the gravitational energy of a supermassive black hole in its core and moves outward towards the upper left corner. The jet seen here extends for about 1,600 light years and has a structure inside.

From this distance, PSO J0309 + 27 is visible as it was when the universe was less than a billion years old, or just over 7% of its present age.

An international team of astronomers led byChristiane Spingola of the University of Bologna in Italy observed the galaxy in April and May 2020. Their analysis of the object's properties supports some theoretical models for why blazars are rare in the early Universe. The researchers reported their results in the journalAstronomy & Astrophysics.

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