Jerusalem, 27 May, 2025 (TPS-IL) — A groundbreaking study by Israeli and Japanese scientists has uncovered powerful winds erupting from a distant black hole, moving at astonishing speeds of up to 30 percent of the speed of light.
The findings, recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature provide a deeper understanding of how black holes interact with their galaxies and shape the evolution of the cosmos.
Scientists from The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Tokyo University focused on the supermassive black hole PDS 456, using data collected by the XRISM space telescope, a cutting-edge X-ray observatory developed by the Japanese space agency JAXA in collaboration with NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). XRISM, launched in 2023 to explore high-energy phenomena in the universe, was critical in detecting and mapping the powerful outflows of gas around black holes.
“These winds are incredibly energetic — 1,000 times more powerful than any galactic wind we’ve seen before,” said Prof. Ehud Bachar from the Technion’s Faculty of Physics, who co-led the study with Prof. Koichi Hagino of the University of Tokyo. “This kind of outflow could have a major influence on the development of the galaxy that hosts the black hole.”
Supermassive black holes sit at the center of most galaxies and appear to co-evolve with them. One mechanism that could link the growth of black holes and galaxies is the emission of high-speed winds from the black hole’s surroundings. Until now, however, the structure and dynamics of these winds were not fully understood due to limitations in observation technology.
“XRISM enables us to see details we could only guess at before,” said Hagino. “We found that the wind isn’t flowing smoothly — it’s broken into clumps, like projectiles being fired in multiple directions at once.”
Nothing can escape from inside a black hole’s event horizon, not even light. But the powerful winds observed in this study don’t come from inside the black hole — they come from the area just outside the event horizon, in what’s called the accretion disk. As gas and dust spiral into a black hole, they form a superheated disk around it. This accretion disk can reach millions of degrees, generating intense radiation and magnetic fields. The extreme conditions can accelerate particles and drive outflows or winds away from the disk before the material can cross the event horizon and become trapped forever.
XRISM serves as a vital link in the timeline of space-based X-ray observations, bridging the gap until the launch of ESA’s ATHENA mission, scheduled no earlier than 2035. “This telescope ensures continuity in our ability to study the violent, high-energy universe,” Bachar said. “Without XRISM, we would have faced a data drought that could have set astrophysics back by over a decade.”
Bachar is notably the only scientist on the XRISM mission team not affiliated with Japan, the United States, or Europe. He was personally appointed by the head of JAXA, underscoring his key role in the international collaboration.
While the study is primarily fundamental research in astrophysics, it has several indirect applications. Insights gained from modeling high-energy winds near black holes contribute to computational techniques useful in fusion energy research, high-energy physics, and even climate modeling.
And innovations from XRISM, such as ultra-sensitive detectors and thermal control systems, have potential applications in fields like medical imaging, materials science, and nuclear monitoring.
