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Cosmic Mystery: Supermassive Black Hole's Unprecedented Flare
9 Dec
Summary
- Supermassive black hole ejected material at one-fifth light speed.
- X-ray burst from black hole triggered ultra-fast cosmic winds.
- Magnetic field untwisting may explain the rapid wind formation.

Astronomers have detected an unprecedented blast from a supermassive black hole situated 130 million light-years from Earth. This colossal black hole, residing at the center of the spiral galaxy NCG 3783 and possessing a mass exceeding 30 million suns, emitted a powerful X-ray flare that rapidly dissipated.
Following the flare, the black hole generated cosmic winds that propelled material into space at an astonishing speed of 37,280 miles per second, or one-fifth the speed of light. This marks the first observation of how an X-ray burst from a supermassive black hole can instantaneously trigger such ultra-fast winds, a phenomenon that occurred much faster than previously anticipated.
The prevailing theory suggests that the rapid 'untwisting' of the black hole's complex magnetic field was responsible for initiating the X-ray radiation and subsequently generating the powerful winds. This process bears resemblance to coronal mass ejections observed on the Sun, albeit on a significantly larger cosmic scale, suggesting potential commonalities between stellar and black hole physics.



