Plate Nº 91 · recorded October 10, 2026
Space & AstronomyReported finding
Astronomers Find First Milky Way Black Hole Jet Pointed at Earth
For the first time, astronomers have spotted a black hole in the Milky Way whose jet points at Earth. The microblazar IRAS 18293-0941 sits 12,000 light-years away and could accelerate particles to petaelectronvolts.
By Elena Vasquez3 min read581 words
In brief
- Astronomers announced the discovery of the microblazar IRAS 18293-0941 on September 22, 2026.
- The system lies 12,000 light-years away in the Milky Way, with the companion star orbiting the black hole every 11.38 days.
- The jets travel outward at roughly three-quarters the speed of light.
- The study was posted to arXiv on September 1, 2026 and accepted by the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
- If confirmed, the system could accelerate particles to petaelectronvolts (10¹⁵ eV).
For the first time, astronomers have identified a black hole jet in our own galaxy aimed directly at Earth — a system they call a microblazar, sitting just 12,000 light-years from our solar system. The team announced the discovery on September 22, 2026.
What did the astronomers actually find?
The object, named IRAS 18293-0941, lies inside the Milky Way. It consists of a black hole orbited by a companion star. The companion completes one full orbit every 11.38 days.
The star sheds material, and some of it spirals into the black hole. The black hole then ejects that material as two thin jets of charged particles. Those jets race outward at roughly three-quarters the speed of light. One jet points toward Earth. The other points away.
The team published the study on arXiv on September 1, 2026. The journal Astronomy & Astrophysics has accepted it for publication. The research group draws on institutions in Spain, the Netherlands, and Argentina.
Lead author Josep Martí of the University of Jaén said: "Everything about IRAS 18293-0941 was hiding in plain sight. It sits behind so much dust that it is essentially invisible in ordinary optical images. It was catalogued decades ago and then more or less forgotten."
How does the jet system work?
If only one jet pointed at us, astronomers would still see the system as a bright, variable source. The clincher came when the team detected a second jet — the one pointing away — by tracking what it does to a nearby molecular cloud. That cloud is a dense knot of cold gas and dust.
The far-side jet has carved out a bubble inside the cloud. Where the jet slams into the far wall of that bubble, the gas and dust heat up and glow. Radio telescopes and optical observations together pinpointed the jet's origin to the star's location, not to some distant galaxy behind it.
Co-author Benito Marcote of the Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC (JIVE) in the Netherlands said: "This was the moment the result became solid. The resolution achieved by the European VLBI Network position together with the known position of the star from the Gaia satellite confirmed it: the jet belongs to the stellar system."
Why does this matter for particle physics?
The point where the away-pointing jet strikes the molecular cloud produces high-energy gamma rays. The team believes the impact zone could accelerate particles to ultra-high energies, possibly reaching petaelectronvolts (PeV) — a quadrillion electronvolts, or 10¹⁵ eV. If confirmed, that would make microblazars among the most powerful particle accelerators in the galaxy.
Co-author Pedro Luque-Escamilla of the University of Jaén said: "The elegance is that the accelerator engine and the target are two different objects, tens of parsecs apart. The jet does the accelerating. The cloud does the shining."
Astronomers have studied blazars — jets from supermassive black holes at galactic centers aimed at Earth — for decades. They predicted the existence of microblazars, the stellar-mass equivalents, roughly 30 years ago. Until this find, no confirmed example existed.
What's next for the team?
The researchers plan to monitor the jet over time to see how it evolves. They also want to study in detail how the jet and the molecular cloud exchange energy. Most ambitiously, they hope to find more microblazars in the Milky Way.
For now, the system poses no threat. Earth simply happens to sit along the line of one of its jets.
via arxiv.org (Original)
More from Elena Vasquez
Nearby plates
- Black Hole Winds Pack 100 Times More Power Than Scientists Expected
- Black hole jets reach far beyond galaxies, shaping their fate
- Black Hole Jets May Decide Whether Galaxies Keep Making Stars
- First 'Quadruple-Double' Radio Galaxy Found with Four Jet Bursts
- JWST's Little Red Dots May Be Black Holes Growing Faster Than Today's