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Posted on 10/21/2025 4:41:48 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Look out, Frodo!
A bright galactic nucleus with a supermassive black hole that spews out cosmic radiation is pointing straight at us.
Thankfully, the object, unimaginatively dubbed “PKS 1424+240,” is located roughly 7.4 billion light-years away and likely won’t pose much of a danger.
But that hasn’t stopped a group of excited astronomers from renaming it: the “Eye of Sauron,” the symbol adopted by the Dark Lord in JRR Tolkien’s epic “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
A new image of the object was recently unveiled, revealing a bright, hot center with cosmic waves spinning around it, spewing a jet of plasma straight at Earth — as if one was staring right into the Eye of Sauron.
The scientists published the image in a new paper in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, detailing how they unraveled a mystery at the center of PKS 1424+240, which appears bright from matter falling into the ravenous maw of the black hole.
PKS 1424+240 is specifically a blazar, a type of galactic nucleus that shoots jets of plasma from its center at almost the speed of light straight towards Earth. Quasars are essentially the same thing, but are not oriented towards our home planet.
What’s curious about PKS 1424+240, or the Eye of Sauron, is that it emits copious amounts of gamma rays and neutrinos and is considered the brightest neutrino-producing blazar in the universe, at least as far as we know.
But PKS 1424+240 also has cosmic jets that move “sluggishly,” according to a statement from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, where part of the research was conducted. This goes against a commonly held assertion that only fast-moving jets can produce bright objects.
After poring over years of observation from radio telescopes and studying the image, astronomers concluded that they are looking at a kind of “optical illusion.”
Having the cosmic jets pointing directly at Earth increases the brightness of the blazar, while they also appear slower than they actually are.
“This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more,” said Jack Livingston, study co-author and researcher at Max Planck in a statement. “At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects — a classic optical illusion.”
What’s also neat is that the astronomers were able to recreate what the blazar jet’s magnetic field may look like — a spiral, or a toroidal doughnut.
Besides plumbing the mysteries of the blazar, the study could help astronomers better understand the relationship between the shape of these cosmic jets and their magnetic fields, further shedding light on the nature of supermassive black holes.
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Well “PKS 1424+240” takes the “scary” right out of it...
PKS 1424+240 is giving us the stink eye? Oh NOES!
PKS 1424+240 now identifies as “TransSolar”...
How very Earth-centric
It is "pointing" at our general, huuuuge area of space.
I will believe something is "pointing directly at us" when Ocrazio-Cortex enrolls at MIT.
Oh noes! We’re all gonna die.....again!
You know, democrats have told me I’m gonna die probably 25 different times over the last 40 years… when’s it gonna end? I feel imma pass most likely at an antifa “rally” I accidentally stumble upon while wearing anything red. NOT climate related.
There was no “Eye of Sauron”, since Tolkien only used it as a metaphor. It was Peter Jackson that used it literally, and also incorrectly.
Lol... :)
Well, I may scoff a little, because it’s so far outside the a human being’s frame of reference.
😄😃🤣🤣😁
“Oh nos! We’re all going to die.... again!’’
Yup, that’s it , we’re done, we DOOMED!!!
Barricade the doors, nail boards at irregular angles across the windows and get the guns out!
And save the children! Won’t someone think of the CHILDREN!!
TTIUWP?
When He made the stars He made streams of light extending the distance to the earth so that Adam could see the stars when he first looked up at night. Other wise how could he see stars initially? One possible explanation.
I'm not a "young Earth" Christian, so I tend to take the time intervals mentioned in the Bible in a more metaphorical sense than literal years as we know them.
However (BIG "however") the God that I believe in created the Universe out of Nothing in an instant, and sent unfathomable amounts of energy/matter flying in all directions to become the billions of galaxies each with billions of stars, stretching out over billions of light-years distance.
God can make space/time/distance to be whatever He pleases, and our human ability or inability to comprehend it is utterly irrelevant. "How do I deal with it?" Simple - I accept it as a characteristic of God's Universe that I cannot comprehend.
Am I so bold, so arrogant, that I claim to comprehend God? I think not.
I don’t find it terrifying. I think it is awesome.
Many just cling to 10K figure, thinking the the Bible is a technical manual of the Universe.
Done! My chilrens have been safely deposited into the fallout shelter. My ray gun is pointed in the correct direction and I’m waiting for the zombies to advance! Captain
“Well “PKS 1424+240” takes the “scary” right out of it...”
I don’t know. I was OK unit that 240 showed up. I mean, I can handle up to about 100, but after that it’s too spooky for me!
We should feel honored!
Wait...what of what?
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