CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astronomers worldwide have recently detected an enormous radio jet emanating from a quasar, which dates back to the universe’s first billion years.

This jet, measuring double the width of the Milky Way galaxy, stands out as the largest radio wave jet identified so early in the fabric of cosmic history, according to the latest findings shared on Thursday.

While radio jets are commonly observed in nearby regions of space, their presence in the distant early universe has remained largely hidden due to the interference from the cosmic microwave background radiation, a remnant from the Big Bang.

Lead researcher Anniek Gloudemans, associated with the National Science Foundation’s NoirLab, commented on the extraordinary nature of this discovery, stating that the extreme characteristics of this object allow it to be detected from our planet despite its great distance.

Research efforts involved collaboration from observatories situated across Europe, as well as in Hawaii and Texas, culminating in a study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The radio jet spans an estimated distance of at least 200,000 light-years, with one light-year equivalent to about 5.8 trillion miles.

The quasar responsible for this magnificent jet was discovered only a few years ago and is believed to have formed when the universe was merely 9% of its current age, corresponding to within the first 1.2 billion years.

Recognized as some of the brightest entities in the universe, quasars are essentially the active cores of galaxies, where gas and dust are continuously spiraling into a supermassive black hole. This process generates an extraordinary amount of energy, causing them to emit intense luminosity.

This particular quasar has a mass approximately 450 million times that of the Sun, featuring a black hole that is not classified as particularly large in the cosmic scale.