17197

While we have long known that jets from super-massive black holes exhibit highly relativistic speeds on parsec scales from radio interferometry comma it is not generally known how the jet evolves on kpc to Mpc scales comma where the jet leaves the host galaxy and begins to interact with the intergalactic medium comma with implications for our understanding of jet structure and quantifying the energy carried by the jet into the external environment. With the development of state-of-the-art astrometry techniques and new data from the Gaia mission comma it is now possible register images of nearby jets first observed by HST in the 1990s to extremely high precision comma reaching accuracies on proper motions of better than 0.3 mas-year. This enabled the dramatic finding of colliding superluminal knots in the jet of 3C264 and helical motions of plasma on kpc scales in M87. We propose a new epoch on the 7 remaining nearby optical jets which have been previously observed by HST for proper motions. This sample is an extremely unique one comma and only HST can provide the precision astrometry and sensitivity needed to track the motion of plasma in jets on kpc scales.