Very Large Telescope Finds Very Tiny Black Hole Blowing Most Massive Fiery Space Bubble
Black Hole, Big Bubble This rendering depicts the black hole blowing a massive bubble of hot gas 1,000 light-years across, or twice as large and tens of times more powerful than other such microquasars ESO/L. Calçada The ESO's Very Large Telescope, with help from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, has found the most powerful pair of jets ever witnessed ejecting from a small, stellar-sized black hole. But while the black hole (by black hole standards, anyhow) is small enough to be classified a microquasar, the jets are anything but tiny, sufficiently powerful to spawn a giant, fiery gas bubble 1,000 light years across. The gas bubble is twice as large and tens of times more intense than gas bubbles associated with other microquasars. The gas bubble feeds on the collimated jets emanating from the black hole, which pump fast moving particles into the interstellar gas surrounding the black hole. As that gas heats...