Archive · 29 Dec 2025
Supermassive Black Hole Fires Ultra-Fast Winds
Astronomers watched a supermassive black hole in a faraway galaxy suddenly get very bright and then shoot out super-fast winds.
These winds were moving at about one-fifth the speed of light, which is incredibly fast!
The black hole is as heavy as 30 million suns.
Scientists used special telescopes to see this happen in just one day.
It's like when the sun shoots out hot gas, but much bigger and more powerful.
This helps us understand how black holes affect the space around them.
Astronomers observed a supermassive black hole in the galaxy NGC 3783 firing ultra-fast winds at 60,000 km/s.
The black hole, 30 million times the mass of the Sun, was monitored by the XMM-Newton and XRISM telescopes.
The winds were triggered by a bright X-ray flare that quickly faded, observed over a single day.
The event is similar to solar eruptions, where tangled magnetic fields 'untwist' to launch high-speed winds.
This discovery provides new insights into how black holes influence their surrounding environments.
- Who
- An international team of astronomers led by Liyi Gu from SRON
- What
- Observed a supermassive black hole firing ultra-fast winds at 60,000 km/s
- When
- The observations were made recently, with the study published in Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Where
- In the spiral galaxy NGC 3783, about 130 million light-years from Earth
- Why
- To understand how black holes influence their surroundings and the similarities with solar phenomena
- Galaxy
- NGC 3783
- Distance from Earth
- 130 million light-years
- Black Hole Mass
- 30 million times the mass of the Sun
- Wind Speed
- 60,000 km/s (one-fifth the speed of light)
- Observation Tools
- ESA's XMM-Newton and JAXA's XRISM
- Research Team
- International team led by Liyi Gu from SRON
- Publication
- Astronomy and Astrophysics