NEW YORK: Astronomers for the first time ever has witnessed a rare event in deep space, where a collision between two jets of matter racing outward from a black hole at 98 percent of the speed of the light.
The Hubble Space Telescope has witnessed the collision.
The black hole in the radio galaxy NGC 3862 is located roughly 260 million light years away from our Milky Way.
The jezs emanating from galaxies can appear to be racing toward Earth faster than the speed of light, a condition that is forbidden by the Special Theory of Relativity. This violation of laws of physics is due to an optical illusion, and astronomers hope this new finding helps them learn more about this strange effect.
Extra galactic jets, which shoot material from the active nucleus of a galaxy in a thin beam, are not well understood.
Analysis of the new data suggests that collisions within the beams accelerate material within the structure and increase the brightness of the gas.
Hubble has observed galaxy NCG 3862 over the course of 20 years. These images are used by the astronomers to create a video showing movement of the material away from the elliptical galaxy.
The jets emanating from NCG 3862 were first spotted in the constellation of Leo by astronomers using the Hubble telescope in 1992. They have a bumpy structure, much like a pearl necklace.
