Astronomers once thought winds generated by supermassive black holes affected only their host galaxies, but a recent study found that their energy can also reach surrounding galaxies.
Winds from a supermassive black hole can carry energy far beyond the galaxy that contains it. New observations show that this influence can extend roughly 300,000 light-years and involve about 100 times more energy than previous estimates, challenging the idea that such winds are largely confined to their host galaxies.
“Black holes are largely known for sucking matter in, but they also eject gas in the form of powerful winds,” says Satoshi Yamada, assistant professor at Tohoku University’s Frontier Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences (FRIS). “These winds were thought to be contained within the galaxy, but our study revealed that the force is immensely more powerful than previously understood.”
XRISM traced the winds beyond one galaxy
Yamada and colleagues from Kanazawa University, Tokyo Metropolitan University, and other institutions investigated the quasar H1821+643 using the X-ray astronomy satellite XRISM. Located in the constellation Draco about 3.4 billion light-years from Earth, the quasar is an extremely luminous object powered by a supermassive black hole actively consuming gas.
The rapidly growing black hole lies at the center of a galaxy cluster and stirs the surrounding hot, X-ray-emitting gas. To measure how that gas was moving, the researchers analyzed emission lines produced by iron ions.
Turbulence carried far more energy
XRISM’s high-precision measurements showed that the high-temperature gas around the black hole is far from stationary. Instead, turbulence spreads the gas violently across a vast region, with the flow reaching beyond the host galaxy to distances of about 300,000 light-years.
The energy carried by this turbulence was approximately 100 times larger than earlier estimates. It was equivalent to the energy from several billion supernova explosions – the explosions that occur when stars reach the end of their lives.
“For the first time, we have shown that black holes influence the broader cosmic environment through a shock wave of astonishing power,” adds Yamada. “Black holes are key drivers of gas flows and motion in space, transporting vast amounts of energy to different regions of the cosmos.”
Future observations are expected to provide a clearer picture of how black holes affect their wider surroundings and how matter and elements circulate throughout the cosmos.
Reference: “Vigorous turbulence driven by quasar-mode feedback in a cluster core” by Satoshi Yamada, Shutaro Ueda, Hirofumi Noda, Yutaka Fujita, Misaki Mizumoto, Kentaro Nagamine, Claudio Ricci, Shoji Ogawa, Taiki Kawamuro, Shinya Yamada, Yuichi Terashima and Yoshihiro Ueda, 28 July 2026, Nature Astronomy.
DOI: 10.1038/s41550-026-02939-x
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