A never-before-seen blast from a supermassive black hole was spotted by two sophisticated X-ray space telescopes. This giant black hole about 130 million light-years away from Earth whipped up powerful winds, flinging material out into space at 37,282 miles per second.
This particular supermassive black hole is lurking within the spiral galaxy NGC 3783. Initially, astronomers spotted a bright X-ray flare erupt from the black hole before the flare quickly faded away. The fast winds emerged as it faded, raging about one-fifth of the speed of light.
“We’ve not watched a black hole create winds this speedily before,” lead researcher Liyi Gu at Space Research Organisation Netherlands (SRON) said in a statement. “For the first time, we’ve seen how a rapid burst of X-ray light from a black hole immediately triggers ultra-fast winds, with these winds forming in just a single day.”
This unique black hole wind is detailed in a study published today in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
To observe NGC 3783 and its black hole, Gu and the team simultaneously used the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton and the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). XRISM is a mission led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA participation.
This black hole is about as large as 30 million of our suns. As it is gorging on nearby material, the black hole powers a very bright and active region at the heart of NGC 3783. This region, called an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN), shoots out all types of light, and hurls powerful jets and winds out into space.
“AGNs are really fascinating and intense regions, and key targets for both XMM-Newton and XRISM,” added Matteo Guainazzi, ESA XRISM Project Scientist and co-author of the discovery. “The winds around this black hole seem to have been created as the AGN’s tangled magnetic field suddenly ‘untwisted’—similar to the flares that erupt from the Sun, but on a scale almost too big to imagine.”
For space weather enthusiasts, the winds coming from the black hole may resemble large solar eruptions of material called coronal mass ejections. These form as the sun shoots out streams of superheated material out into the cosmos. In this way, the study shows that supermassive black holes will sometimes act like our sun, making these mysterious objects seem a little more familiar. A coronal mass ejection following an intense flare on November 11 had initial winds associated with that event clocked in at 950 miles per second.
“Windy AGNs also play a big role in how their host galaxies evolve over time, and how they form new stars,” added Camille Diez, a team member and ESA Research Fellow. “Because they’re so influential, knowing more about the magnetism of AGNs, and how they whip up winds such as these, is key to understanding the history of galaxies throughout the Universe.”
The XMM-Newton space telescope first launched in 1999 and has been exploring the hot and extreme universe ever since. XRISM launched in September 2023, with the goal of learning more about how matter and energy move through the cosmos. Both of these X-ray space telescopes worked together on this unique black hole event. XMM-Newton tracked the initial flare’s evolution using its Optical Monitor, and assessed the extent of the winds with the European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC). XRISM spotted the flare and winds using its Resolve instrument, also observing the winds’ speed, structure, and determining how they were launched into space.
“Their discovery stems from successful collaboration, something that’s a core part of all ESA missions,” concluded ESA XMM-Newton Project Scientist Erik Kuulkers. “By zeroing in on an active supermassive black hole, the two telescopes have found something we’ve not seen before: rapid, ultra-fast, flare-triggered winds reminiscent of those that form at the sun. Excitingly, this suggests that solar and high-energy physics may work in surprisingly familiar ways throughout the Universe.”
