First Milky Way Microblazar Found: Black Hole Jet Accelerates Particles to Extreme Energies
Astronomers have identified IRAS 18293-0941 as the first confirmed microblazar in the Milky Way, a stellar-mass black hole system emitting jets at near-light speed. Located 12,000 light-years away, the system consists of a black hole roughly 10 times the mass of the Sun orbiting a companion star every 11 days. The discovery, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, resolves a 30-year search for a galactic analog to distant blazars. The system’s jets, one pointing directly at Earth and the other impacting a dense gas cloud, may explain the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, acting as a natural particle accelerator 100 times more powerful than the Large Hadron Collider.