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Looking inside the plasma jet cone of the blazar PKS 1424+240 with a radio telescope of the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). Credit: NSF/AUI/NRAO/B. Saxton/Y.Y. Kovalev et al. ==================================================================================== A cosmic jet aimed at Earth reveals how blazars hurl particles to extreme energies, solving a long-standing mystery. Key Points * A glimpse into a galaxy’s core: Astronomers have captured a detailed image of the birthplace of a powerful cosmic jet. With its artificial colors, the view strikingly resembles the legendary “Eye of Sauron.” * The neutrino puzzle: PKS 1424+240 stands out as the brightest known source of neutrinos of its...

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...