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Hidden for 30 Years: Microquasar 500,000x Stronger Than Sun Fires Plasma Jet at Earth!
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News18•26-09-2026, 15:53
Hidden for 30 Years: Microquasar 500,000x Stronger Than Sun Fires Plasma Jet at Earth!
- •Astronomers discovered a microquasar, IRAS 18293-0941, in the Milky Way, 12,000 light-years from Earth.
- •This system features a black hole consuming matter from a companion star, ejecting a plasma jet directly towards Earth.
- •The microquasar remained hidden for three decades behind dense interstellar gas and dust, now revealed by modern technology.
- •Despite being a stellar-mass black hole, it behaves like a supermassive blazar, leading scientists to name it a microquasar.
- •One jet has created a 100-light-year-wide bubble, shining 500,000 times more powerfully than the Sun, by colliding with cosmic dust.
Key Questions Answered
IRAS 18293-0941 is a newly discovered microquasar located approximately 12,000 light-years away from Earth within the Milky Way galaxy.
The microquasar remained hidden because it was situated behind a thick, dense wall of interstellar gas and dust, making it invisible in normal optical images and completely forgotten after being cataloged decades ago.
The collision of the jet with cosmic dust creates a giant bubble and hotspot that generates ten times more energy than the Large Hadron Collider, making the jet 500,000 times more powerful than the total energy emitted by the Sun.
