00:00Black holes suck in anything and everything that comes near them.
00:06Even light cannot escape after crossing one of their event horizons.
00:10However, black holes also release astrophysical jets, or massive outflows of ionized matter.
00:15Now astronomers say they have observed the result of one of these jets ejecting out into
00:19space and it's created a cosmic megastructure, the largest ever seen.
00:24This is a simulation of what that event and the resulting structure look like, and it
00:28has now been named Porphyrion, after the Greek king of giants.
00:32Experts say it spanned some 7 megaparsecs across spacetime, or the equivalent of 23
00:37million light years across.
00:39That means the supermassive black hole that created it is extremely small by comparison.
00:44For reference, if Porphyrion was shrunk down to the size of Earth, the supermassive black
00:48hole would only measure 0.2 millimeters, meaning it's the equivalent of a skin mite, producing
00:53in effect the size of our planet.
00:56Astrophysical jets are created when material entering the black hole gets accelerated along
01:00its magnetic field lines towards the poles.
01:03This results in powerful jets of plasma being jettisoned into the cosmos at nearly the speed
01:08of light.
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