Blazar Flares: How to Tell Particle Accelerators Apart
A blazar is a distant galaxy with a plasma jet shooting from its center, aimed almost directly at us. Inside this jet, particles are accelerated to near-light speeds and emit powerful radiation.
Record-breaking photons are born in the shadow of a binary star
In the binary system Cygnus X-3, right here in our Galaxy, a black hole and a giant star whirl so tightly together that the star loses matter: it's swept away by a powerful wind. Jets blast out from near the black hole; recently, a telescope caught photons from them, each carrying the energy of a flying mosquito.