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Gas Ricochet

In the Face Book group:
Someone posted an article that claimed a jet rebounded off intergalactic gas.

My comment:

Such atrocious descriptions! There is this:' we see this black hole jet rebound off intergalactic gas, in much the same way that a pebble would skip or ricochet off the surface of a pond'
A rebound requires a physical surface of condensed matter like solid or or liquid (e.g., pond). It is just impossible to bounce anything off a gas. It is unclear if this jet is supposedly a gas (which can't bounce) or a liquid (which really can't bounce either). Perhaps the jet is the infamous flow of charged particles otherwise called an electric current. A current does not bounce either but it can change directions because the current generates a magnetic field that can be either attracting or repelling another magnetic field nearby.

We see this: 'a rotating, tightly-wound vertical tower of powerful magnetic fields'
This is a fair description of the helix seen with Birkeland currents () many images are  online. There is mention of X-rays so there are definitely electric currents involved in synchrotron radiation here. There is this: 'the size of the hole it creates[when it ricochets]. A hole implies a surface in condensed matter. A gas can be dispersed but it never really has a hole because the gas is free to move into any gap.
This description of a ricocheting jet with galactic gas is preposterous.

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