By Samantha Jones-
Astronomers have discovered one of the most powerful ultra-fast outflows ever observed from a supermassive black hole, providing a rare glimpse into a violent process that helped shape the early universe. The finding, made using two of the world’s leading X-ray observatories, reveals colossal streams of matter blasting away from a distant quasar at up to 30 per cent of the speed of light.
The discovery sheds new light on how supermassive black holes influence the growth of galaxies and offers compelling evidence that some of the most extreme objects in the cosmos behaved in remarkably similar ways billions of years ago as they do today. The international team of researchers, led by Giorgio Lanzuisi of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Bologna, examined a hyper-luminous quasar known as WISSH13, located more than 11 billion light-years from Earth. Their findings, detailed in a study submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, reveal a complex system of powerful winds being launched from the vicinity of a black hole estimated to contain roughly two billion times the mass of the Sun.
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The observations were made using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory and NASA’s NuSTAR space telescope. Together, the instruments allowed astronomers to produce one of the most detailed X-ray spectra ever obtained from such a distant and extraordinarily bright quasar. At the heart of the discovery are what astronomers call ultra-fast outflows, or UFOs. Despite the science-fiction name, these phenomena are very real and represent some of the most energetic processes known in the universe.
When supermassive black holes consume large amounts of gas and dust, the infalling material forms a rapidly spinning accretion disk around the black hole. Temperatures within these disks can reach millions of degrees, generating enormous amounts of radiation. Some of this energy drives powerful winds outward, ejecting matter into interstellar space at extraordinary speeds.
Scientists believe these outflows play a critical role in regulating the growth of galaxies. By heating and dispersing gas that would otherwise form new stars, the winds can effectively shut down star formation and alter the future evolution of entire galaxies.
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This process, known as feedback, has become one of the central concepts in modern astrophysics. Without it, computer simulations suggest galaxies would become far larger and more massive than those observed in the real universe.
“Black holes are not simply cosmic vacuum cleaners,” one astronomer famously remarked. “They can also act as cosmic blowtorches.”
The newly discovered outflows were detected during an era known to astronomers as “cosmic noon,” a period between approximately 1.6 and 3.5 billion years after the Big Bang when star formation and black hole growth reached their peak across the universe. During this epoch, galaxies were building stars at prodigious rates while supermassive black holes were rapidly accumulating mass. Understanding the relationship between the two processes has become one of the most important goals in astronomy.
The quasar WISSH13 offers an exceptional opportunity to investigate these questions. Located at a redshift of 3.294, astronomers observe it as it appeared roughly two billion years after the birth of the universe. What makes the object particularly remarkable is the extreme rate at which its central black hole is feeding. Researchers estimate that the quasar shines approximately three times brighter than expected for a black hole of its mass, suggesting it is consuming matter at a phenomenal pace.
In order to study the system in detail, the research team combined fresh observations obtained in October 2024 with archival data collected by XMM-Newton in 2017. The resulting spectrum revealed two distinct absorption features—tell-tale signatures of ultra-fast outflows moving toward Earth. These features occur when highly ionised iron atoms within the wind absorb X-rays emitted by the quasar. Because the gas is moving outward at a significant fraction of light speed, the absorption signatures appear shifted to higher energies, a phenomenon known as blueshift.
By analysing these shifts, researchers determined that the outflow consists of two separate components travelling at dramatically different speeds. One component is moving at approximately 10 per cent of the speed of light, while the second reaches an astonishing 30 per cent of light speed—equivalent to more than 90,000 kilometres per second.
Such velocities place the newly discovered winds among the fastest ever recorded.
The data also suggest that the two components behave differently over time. The slower wind was detected in both the 2017 and 2024 observations, indicating that it has remained stable for at least seven years. By contrast, the faster component appeared only in the more recent observations, suggesting it may be generated in shorter, more energetic bursts.
Researchers believe this behaviour supports long-standing theoretical models predicting a layered wind structure around actively feeding black holes. According to these models, the outflow resembles a two-part system consisting of a central “spine” surrounded by an outer “sheath.” The spine originates close to the black hole, where gravitational and magnetic forces are strongest, accelerating material to extreme velocities. The surrounding sheath forms farther from the centre and moves more slowly.
The observations of WISSH13 appear to provide some of the clearest evidence yet that such structures exist. Perhaps even more striking is the sheer quantity of matter being expelled. The researchers estimate that the slower wind ejects around 21 solar masses of material each year, while the faster component expels approximately 24 solar masses annually.
Together, they represent one of the most massive and energetic black hole-driven outflows ever detected. The discovery is significant for another reason. Most previous observations of ultra-fast outflows at comparable distances relied on gravitational lensing—a phenomenon in which a foreground galaxy magnifies the light from a more distant object.While gravitational lensing can help astronomers observe faint targets, it also introduces uncertainties that complicate the interpretation of data.
WISSH13, however, is not gravitationally lensed. Its brightness is intrinsic, making it the highest-redshift non-lensed quasar in which an ultra-fast outflow has been clearly detected.The findings therefore provide a cleaner and more reliable window into black hole behaviour during the universe’s formative years.
Despite the extraordinary power of the winds, researchers were surprised to find that they follow the same physical relationships observed in much closer active galaxies. This suggests that the mechanisms driving black hole feedback have remained remarkably consistent over billions of years of cosmic history.
The discovery also highlights the growing capabilities of modern X-ray astronomy and points toward even more ambitious investigations in the future. Astronomers are particularly excited about the prospects offered by the planned Athena mission, the European Space Agency’s next-generation X-ray observatory. Scheduled for launch in the 2030s, Athena will possess vastly greater sensitivity than existing instruments and is expected to revolutionise the study of black holes and galaxy evolution.
Scientists believe the observatory will be capable of detecting similar outflows in large numbers of distant quasars, allowing researchers to build a much more complete picture of how supermassive black holes shaped the young universe.
At the moment, however, WISSH13 stands as one of the most dramatic examples yet discovered of a black hole not merely consuming matter, but violently reshaping its surroundings on a galactic scale. The colossal winds pouring from its core serve as a reminder that even the darkest objects in the universe can exert a profound influence far beyond their event horizons, helping to determine the fate of galaxies across cosmic time.
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