Scientists are baffled after spotting the ‘Eye of Sauron’ in deep space

The Eye of Sauron is an integral part of the Lord of the Rings series.

The flaming, floating fiery eyeball, positioned atop a dark tower in Mordor, is a symbol of the Dark Lord’s all–seeing power and vigilance.

Now, experts have detected a similarly terrifying vision in real life.

But rather than looking for Frodo or the Ring, it seems to be peering directly at us from deep space.

The image is of a phenomenon called a cosmic jet, which is an extremely powerful stream of plasma and energy emitted from celestial objects.

This particular one comes from a blazar – a type of galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole.

The PKS 1424+240 blazar is one of the brightest in the sky despite being located billions of light–years away.

And as well as a foreboding picture, the discovery may have helped researchers solve a decades–long cosmic puzzle.

Using 15 years of ultra–precise radio observations, researchers were able to stitch together a deep image of the jet at unparalleled resolution

Fans of fantasy might notice that the image bears a striking resemblance to the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings 

The blazar has long baffled astronomers as its cosmic jet appeared to move slowly, despite it being one of the brightest sources of high–energy gammas rays and cosmic neutrinos ever observed.

This contradicted the belief that only the fastest jets could be behind such exceptional brightness.

Using 15 years of ultra–precise radio observations from the Very Long Baseline Array – a system of 10 radio telescopes – researchers were able to stitch together a deep image of the jet at unparalleled resolution.

‘When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning,’ lead author Yuri Kovalev, from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, said.

‘We have never seen anything quite like it—a near–perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us.’

Since the jet is aligned almost exactly in the direction of Earth, its high–energy radio emissions are dramatically amplified.

‘This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more,’ co–author Jack Livingston said.

‘At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects—a classic optical illusion.’

Far from being a flattering moniker, the Eye of Sauron represents the Dark Lord’s terrifying omnipotence and terrible gaze in J. R. R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings novels

This head–on view also gave scientists the extremely rare opportunity to peer directly into the heart of the blazar’s jet.

Radio signals helped the team map out the structure of the jet’s magnetic field, revealing it is likely helical (a spiral) or toroidal (doughnut–shaped).

This structure likely plays a key role in accelerating particles to extreme energies, the researchers said.

The findings were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.