13.2 billion trillion kilometres from Earth, a small galaxy is getting blasted by a jet of radiation and energy. The jet is coming from a black hole in its neighbour, a bigger galaxy. The two galaxies have been orbiting around each other and slowly merging into one, but the deadly ray will almost certainly destroy its target.
Scientists are unsure of what the ray is, exactly. A paper is set to be published next year in The Astrophysical Journal that will combine findings and observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, ground telescopes, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Eventually, the jet may combine with gases in the smaller galaxy to give birth to new stars.
One thing they do know is that if this ray were aimed at the Earth, the ozone would be destroyed and all living things would be subjected to the radiation of both the sun and the jet. Luckily, Earth is not in its path.
A piece of advice? Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the Hayden Planetarium in New York, quoted on canoe.ca, says “avoid black holes when you can.”
