New observations from the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), have revealed that ultra-fast winds emanating from a supermassive black hole are not continuous flows, but rather consist of rapid-fire clumps of gas, likened to bullets. These findings, published in the journal Nature on May 15, 2025, challenge existing models of galaxy-black hole co-evolution.
XRISM, an international space telescope designed for high-resolution X-ray observations, detected winds traveling at 20% to 30% of the speed of light from a supermassive black hole. The data indicates that these winds comprise at least five distinct gas components, each moving at different velocities, suggesting a clumpy, bullet-like structure.
The research team estimates that the black hole expels gas at a rate of 60 to 300 solar masses per year. The energy carried by these winds is over 1,000 times greater than that of galactic-scale winds, significantly impacting our understanding of their role in galaxy evolution. This suggests that gas is intermittently ejected, potentially through gaps in the surrounding interstellar medium, which challenges long-standing theories of how galaxies and their central black holes evolve together.