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Astronomers have observed that a distant supermassive black hole has been releasing a jet of plasma in the shape of twisted rope and blasting it out like a monstrous cosmic spider at near-light speed.

The spectacular sight was witnessed by the astronomers using a network of radio telescopes, which included the RadioAstron space telescope which are combined to create an Earth-sized antenna.

The network was specifically trained by the astronomers to observe the heart of a distant blazar named 3C 279.

"Thanks to RadioAstron and a network of twenty-three radio telescopes distributed across the Earth, we have obtained the highest-resolution image of the interior of a blazar to date, allowing us to observe the internal structure of the jet in such detail for the first time," stated Antonio Fuentes, team leader and a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), in a statement.

Blazars, like the 3C 279, are the bright hearts of galaxies which emit powerful light after they host a feeding supermassive black hole. The black holes, which are present in the centres of galaxies and are actively feeding, continuously churn the matter on which they feast and this material is situated in the form of flattened plates of dust and gas around the voids. These plates are known as "accretion disks."

The 3C 279's new observations reveal unprecedented details of the supermassive black hole and plasma jet at the heart of this blazar.

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Plasma jets are not uniform, appear with twists and turns

"This is the first time we have seen such filaments so close to the jet’s origin, and they tell us more about how the black hole shapes the plasma," said Eduardo Ros, another member of the team and European scheduler of the Global mm-VLBI Array, in the statement. "This shows how different telescopes can reveal different features of the same object,” he added.

The team further found that the jet was composed of at least two twisted filaments of plasma which stretch nearly 570 light-years from their source. The observations further showed that the plasma jets are not uniform and straight and they show the twists and turns which arise because of the influence of the central black hole.

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The helical filaments or twists are because of the instabilities in the plasma jet which is part of the prior theories which imply how these jets evolve may need to be revised.

"One particularly intriguing aspect arising from our results is that they suggest the presence of a helical magnetic field that confines the jet," said Guang-Yao Zhao, one of the members of the team and a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, in the statement.

"Therefore, it could be the magnetic field, which rotates clockwise around the jet in 3C 279, that directs and guides the jet’s plasma moving at a speed of 0.997 times the speed of light,” he added.

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"We are entering an entirely novel terrain in which these filaments can be actually connected to the most intricate processes in the immediate vicinity of the black hole producing the jet," said Andrei Lobanov, one of the members of the team and scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, in the statement.

(With inputs from agencies)

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