Galactic jet. Combined optical and infrared image of the giant elliptical galaxy M87, or NGC 4486. M87 has a prominent jet (blue) streaming from its core (yellow). The jet is made of electrons and other particles accelerated from around a supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. The light we see comes from electrons spiralling around magnetic field lines in the jet, a process called synchrotron radiation. M87 is about 50 million light years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. This image was made with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope.