Supermassive black holes launch the most powerful cosmic jets From within our own galaxy to behemoths billions of light-years away, supermassive black holes create jets like nothing else in the cosmos. May 4, 2026 The galaxy Centaurus A is the closest example of an active galaxy to Earth, with its high-energy jets caused by electromagnetic acceleration around the central black hole. The extent of its jets are far smaller than the jets that Chandra has observed around Pictor A, which themselves are much smaller than the jets of Alcyoneus, which are still smaller than jets found in the newly discovered Porphyrion. This picture, alone, illustrates temperatures ranging from ~10 K to as high as several millions of K: hotter than the surfaces of the hottest stars. Credit : X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al Radio: NSF/VLA/Univ. of Hertfordshire/M.Hardcastle et al. Optical: ESO/VLT/ISAAC/M.Rejkuba et al.…