"Earth in the Path of a Supermassive Black Hole's High-Energy Jet"

NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission has observed a supermassive black hole, known as Markarian 421, pointing its highly energetic jet directly towards Earth. The jet, created by the black hole's accretion disk, emits bright electromagnetic radiation and is accompanied by a helical magnetic field. The polarization of the jet was found to rotate nearly 180 degrees in just two days, providing new insights into the physics of blazar jets. The discovery could help scientists better understand the mechanisms behind these extreme cosmic phenomena.