Black-hole jets are among the most violent, and important, phenomena in the universe. When matter falls toward a black hole, it often forms an extremely hot "accretion disk" around the hole as it spirals in. Somehow, despite the intense gravity hauling things inward, the inner part of the accretion disk often manages to emit narrow jets of matter from its top and bottom faces. Typically, a few percent of the infalling stuff ends up getting expelled this way, powered somehow by the energy of the rest falling in.
These accretion-disk jets can extend millions of light-years from the cores of active radio galaxies and quasars. We also see them in miniature squirting from "microquasars" in our own galaxy, when enough matter feeds into a stellar-mass black hole.
Full article here: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/18370199.html
-Ryan
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