What are cosmic jets?

Cosmic jets are super-fast streams of energy and matter that shoot out from black holes or stars, like water shooting out of a fire hose.

Imagine you have a big, powerful toaster, but instead of making bread, it’s zapping space itself. When something really heavy falls into a black hole, it gets squished and heated up, creating a super hot, glowing plasma. This plasma then shoots out in two opposite directions, like twin fire hoses aimed at the sky.

• The black hole is like a suction cup, it pulls in matter.
• That pulled-in matter gets crushed and heated, creating super-hot gas.
• This hot gas shoots out fast from both sides of the black hole, forming two long beams called cosmic jets.

These jets can travel for billions of miles and light up space like giant flashlights in the dark. Scientists use big telescopes to watch them, it’s like watching a superhero power-up in the night sky!