A jet engine is a powerful machine that creates thrust by shooting a stream of hot gases backward at extremely high speed. Picture a deflating balloon zipping around a room: the air rushing out one end pushes the balloon forward. A jet engine works the same way, but instead of air from a balloon, it burns fuel to create an incredibly forceful blast of exhaust gases that propels an aircraft forward at hundreds of miles per hour.

Here's how it works: The engine sucks in air from the front, compresses it to tremendous pressure, mixes it with fuel and ignites it, then blasts the resulting hot gases out the back. This continuous cycle happens so fast and powerfully that it can push a massive airplane carrying hundreds of passengers across continents at speeds approaching 600 miles per hour.

Jet engines revolutionized travel when they became widespread in the 1950s and 1960s. Before jets, propeller planes took over 15 hours to cross the United States, with multiple stops for refueling. Today's jets make the same journey in about five hours nonstop. The jet engine made the world feel smaller by connecting distant places quickly and reliably, turning a week-long ocean voyage into an overnight flight.