Felix Aharonian

For a long time, astronomers searched for the 'factories' of the most energetic cosmic rays — particles that carry the macrocosm compressed to the size of an atomic nucleus. Colossal star-forming regions like Cygnus OB2, where winds from young giants collide, were prime suspects.

The cosmic racer SS 433 tears through the Galaxy, ejecting two narrow jets of superheated gas at a quarter of the speed of light. This is a microquasar — a binary system where a black hole siphons matter from a normal star, and some of it escapes as jets.