{"id":383587,"date":"2026-04-17T03:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T03:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383587\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T03:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T03:36:14","slug":"mind-blowing-power-and-speed-of-black-hole-jets-measured-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383587\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind-blowing power and speed of black hole jets measured for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time, scientists have measured the instantaneous mind-blowing power of jets blasting from a black hole.<\/p>\n

The jet power from this relatively close black hole-star system is equivalent to 10,000 suns, an international research team reported on Thursday. They also tracked the jet speed: roughly 540 million km\/h (355 million mph) \u2013 half the speed of light.<\/p>\n

Located 7,200 light-years away, Cygnus X-1 features not only a black hole \u2013 the first one ever identified more than a half-century ago \u2013 but a blue supergiant star, its constant companion. A light-year is nearly 9.7 trillion km (6 trillion miles).<\/p>\n

The University of Oxford\u2019s Steve Prabu and his team based their findings on 18 years of high-resolution radio imaging obtained by a global telescope network. He conducted the research while still at Australia\u2019s Curtin University, which led the study published in Nature Astronomy.<\/p>\n

Prabu and his colleagues were able to measure the swift power of these \u201cdancing jets\u201d as he calls them, as they were pushed in opposite directions by the star\u2019s wind. The group based its calculations on how much the jets were bent by the stellar wind as well as computer modelling.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

01:28<\/p>\n

\u2018Supermassive\u2019 black hole at the centre of our galaxy viewed for the first time<\/p>\n

\u2018Supermassive\u2019 black hole at the centre of our galaxy viewed for the first time<\/p>\n

Until now, a black hole\u2019s jet power had to be averaged over tens of thousands of years, the researchers said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time, scientists have measured the instantaneous mind-blowing power of jets blasting from a black hole.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,400,198670,6069,22024,46931,111,139,69,147,392,199126,33348],"class_list":{"0":"post-383587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-black-hole","10":"tag-cygnus-x-1","11":"tag-galaxies","12":"tag-milky-way","13":"tag-nature-astronomy","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-space","19":"tag-steve-prabu","20":"tag-university-of-oxford"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}