The Strongest Electrical Current in the Universe Spotted, 2 Billion Light Years From Here

[n2doc]

By Clay DillowPosted 06.22.2011 at 12:58 pm


Galaxy 3C303, Keeping Current Generated from a Very Large Array image, this image shows the huge jet of current stretching for 150,000 light years across galaxy 3C303. Philipp P. Kronberg, Richard V.E. Lovelace, Giovanni Lapenta, Stirling A. Colgate via arXiv

Looking for a source of renewable electricity? Researchers at the University of Toronto have found some serious current emanating from a huge cosmic jet 2 billion light years from Earth. At 1018 amps, the current is the strongest current ever seen, equalling something like a trillion bolts of lightning.

The awesome current was found around the galaxy 3C303, whose core is the origin of a massive matter jet. While measuring the alignment of radio waves around 3C303, the researchers noticed a swift and sudden shift in the alignment of those radio waves, the telltale sign of an electrical current.

Why exactly this is happening is unclear, but the researchers speculate that the black hole at the galaxy’s heart plays a role, its magnetic fields generating this current that is so strong that it lights up the matter jet and helps to drive it outward. Way outward. The jet reaches out some 150,000 light years into interstellar space--farther than the estimated diameter of the Milky Way.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-06/strongest-current-universe-detected-some-2-billion-light-years-away

[GodlessBiker]

1. Okay, what if we put all of the world's extension cords end to end, could we reach it?

;-)

[KurtNYC]

5. All that electricity...you just know they are

growing weed over there.

Hey Alpha Sector 541, don't Bogart!

[TomClash]

2. To MIchelle Bachmann

This looks like the Angel Gabriel.

[phantom power]

3. clarification: that's 10^18 amps (not 1018).

Big!

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Thanks, I thought it sounded trivial as written. nt

[thelordofhell]

4. Rave At Galaxy 3C303

Pump that bass

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. Funny that this single galaxy exhibits current flowing into/out of itself. It must be

unique.