Gamma Rays Detected From Halfway Across The Galaxy

Space





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An artist's impression of the powerful blazar-like galaxy PKS 1441+25. M. Weiss/CfA

Last April, after having traveled halfway across the universe, a powerful cascade of gamma rays was observed, allowing astronomers to see a major black hole eruption like never before.

Two teams of astronomers were able to use different instrumentation to piece together a huge amount of information about galaxy PKS 1441+25, which is 7.6 billion light-years away. The supermassive black hole at its center has a mass of 70 million suns, with an event horizon (the surface of no return around a black hole) with a radius of over 300 million kilometers (190 million miles).