Astronomers have detected the most powerful ultra-fast outflows, or UFOs, ever observed blasting from a supermassive black hole more than 11 billion light-years from Earth. These colossal winds of superheated gas were recorded racing through the cosmos at speeds reaching up to 670 million miles per hour.
The outflows were launched by a black hole known as WISSH13, which was observed as it existed when the universe was approximately two billion years old. Scientists reported that these powerful streams are capable of reshaping entire galaxies by heating and expelling the gas necessary for new star formation, potentially slowing or halting a galaxy's growth over time.
The discovery was made using data from the XMM-Newton and NuSTAR space telescopes, which provided the most detailed X-ray view to date of the distant quasar. Researchers identified two separate UFOs emanating from WISSH13. One outflow was traveling at 10 percent of the speed of light, while another reached 30 percent. The speed of light is approximately 186,282 miles per second.
Scientists detected the outflows by observing unusual dips in X-ray light from the quasar. These signatures were caused by streams of superheated gas containing ionized iron absorbing some of the X-rays on their journey toward Earth. Because the gas was moving away from the black hole at a significant fraction of the speed of light, the signals appeared shifted to higher energies, allowing researchers to calculate their speed.
This detection is particularly significant because it was made around a non-lensed quasar. Most previous discoveries of distant UFOs have relied on gravitational lensing, where a galaxy between the quasar and Earth magnifies its light, which can introduce uncertainties. The combination of XMM-Newton and NuSTAR data, collected seven years apart, allowed for a clearer analysis.
The slower outflow was present in both 2017 and 2024 observations, suggesting it is a persistent feature of the black hole. The faster outflow, however, was only seen in the more recent data, indicating it may erupt in powerful, intermittent bursts.
The research team believes the black hole produces a layered wind structure, with a fast-moving core, or 'spine,' surrounded by a slower outer shell, or 'sheath.' Together, these outflows eject material equivalent to more than 40 suns annually, making them among the most powerful black hole winds ever identified. This discovery provides a rare glimpse into how supermassive black holes influenced galaxy evolution in the early universe, and future observatories are expected to reveal more such phenomena.