Supermassive black holes are the monsters of the universe, so it is perhaps only fitting that astronomers discovered one of these behemoths unleashing a bright x-ray flare that one of the researchers, astronomer Matteo Guainazzi, described as “almost too big to imagine” in a European Space Agency (ESA) press release.
Within hours of erupting, the blast faded, and the black hole began to whip up winds more powerful than anything we can imagine on Earth and flinging material into space at about 130 million miles per hour—a fifth of the speed of light. For comparison, plasma ejected during a coronal mass ejection from the sun typically travels at a mere three million mph.
To study the black hole, astronomers used two x-ray space telescopes: the ESA’s XMM-Newton and the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, which is a collaboration between the ESA, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Lurking at the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3783, the supermassive black hole—with a mass of 30 million suns—powers the galaxy’s heart, a region known as an active galactic nucleus.
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According to Guainazzi’s statement, tangled magnetic fields in this region may have suddenly “untwisted,” generating the winds. Knowing more about active galactic nuclei, and the way that they generate such powerful jets and winds, is key to understanding how galaxies form and evolve over time, study co-author and ESA researcher fellow Camille Diez said in the press release.
The research was published on Tuesday in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Editor’s Note (12/9/25): This article was edited after posting to better clarify the speed at which the black hole flung material into space and the source of Matteo Guainazzi’s and Camille Diez’s comments.