The newly discovered pair, nicknamed Porphyrion after a rebellious giant in Greek mythology, were spotted in observations from LOFAR, a network of radio wave detectors in the Netherlands.

It’s the equivalent of 140 Milky Ways lined up end-to-end. The study describing the jet megastructure, dubbed Porphyrion after a mythological Greek giant, is published today in Nature.

An artist's illustration of the longest black hole jet system ever observed. Nicknamed Porphyrion after a mythological Greek giant, these jets span roughly 7 megaparsecs, or 23 million light-years.

Before these jets—nicknamed Porphyrion after a giant in ancient Greek myth—were discovered, it was thought that supermassive black hole jets couldn't get larger than 5 megaparsecs, or about 16 ...

An artist's illustration of the longest black hole jet system ever observed. Nicknamed Porphyrion after a mythological Greek giant, these jets span roughly 7 megaparsecs, or 23 million light-years.

This artist’s illustration shows what one of Porphyrion’s jets might look like close to its source; the orange arrow on the left points to the supermassive black hole itself. DESY/Science ...

The gigantic jets have been given a suitably mythic name, with the team that discovered the megastructure dubbing them "Porphyrion" in reference to the giant offspring of Gaia in Greek mythology.

"The Milky Way would be a little dot in these two giant eruptions." The jet megastructure, nicknamed Porphyrion after a giant in Greek mythology, dates to a time when our universe was 6.3 billion ...

"The Milky Way would be a little dot in these two giant eruptions." The jet megastructure, nicknamed Porphyrion after a giant in Greek mythology, dates to a time when our universe was 6.3 billion ...

The largest-ever black hole jets ever seen hint that these cosmic monsters may play an even more significant role in shaping galaxies than previously thought. Astronomers have spotted the biggest ...