Giant winds from black holes can spray gas from the center of the galaxy to the entire galaxy at tremendous speeds, and extinguish the formation of stars the researchers say. This finding reveals how black holes can affect the fate of the entire galaxy, the scientists added.

^{Credit image = pixabay}

At the center of almost all galaxies dwells in supermassive black holes whose mass is millions to billions of times the mass of the sun. Many are relatively quiet, as it resides in the center of the Milky Way. However, others, known as active galactic nuclei, voraciously eat matter in their environment, potentially creating black hole winds.

"When they do that, these materials are also destroyed and squeezed in a kind of vortex that astrophysicists call the accretion disk," says lead author Francesco Tombesi, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and at the University of Maryland, College Park. "The friction on the disk causes the materials to heat up to very high and very luminous temperatures, up to more than a trillion times the luminosity of the sun.The pressure from this radiation can then become so high that it can effectively push the material out and it is called" wind black hole".

Previous research suggests there is a close relationship between the size of the active galactic nucleus and the size of the galaxy where they live. Scientists have suspected that active galactic nuclei could propel giant winds from gas and dust to all parts of the galaxy and blow away star forming matter and affect the evolution of black hole's galaxies.

Now the researchers have the first observational evidence to suggest that supermassive black holes can power these supreme streams.

"What I find most interesting about this result is that we finally have clear evidence that supermassive black holes in the center of the galaxy are so strong that they can affect an entire galaxy," Tombesi told Space.com. "The most important implication is that our theories about how supermassive black holes and galaxies are formed, grow and evolve should consider both."

The scientists examined supermassive black holes at the center of the galaxy known as IRAS F11119 + 3257, which is about 2.6 billion light years from Earth. Previous research estimates black holes are about 16 million times the mass of the sun.

The researchers analyzed this galaxy with data collected in 2013 from astronomical satellite Suzaku X-ray, a joint venture of NASA and Japan's space agency JAXA. They found the wind from the galactic nucleus that began traveling at about 30 percent the speed of light, or about 323 million km / h. Scientists estimate the number of gas giants equal to about 1.5 times the mass of the sun flowing in the wind per year.

Using infrared data from the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, the researchers saw that as the black hole's wind drained out, nearly 1,000 light years, its speed slowed to about 3.6 million km / h. At the same time, the wind sweeps an additional gas of about 800 suns per year and pushes this material away from the galactic center.

Astronomers have previously detected winds that are very close to black holes using X-ray telescopes and have also seen a much larger outflow of gas through infrared observations. But this is the first time scientists have detected both in the same galaxy.

"Other galaxies are too weak in infrared X-rays or there is too much gas and dust to block our view of the central region," Tombesi said.

Prior studies have suggested another possible cause of this gigantic flow is the energy of star formation near the galactic center. However, this new study believes the brightness of the active galactic nucleus IRAS F11119 + 3257, responsible for about 80 percent of the overall radiation of the galaxy, means that star formation alone can not explain all of this radiation. These results led scientists to conclude that the black hole wind was responsible.

By detecting material flow from one supermassive black hole from the smallest to the largest, it will help provide a complete view of how the wind can strip out the star-forming gases in the galaxy.

"The supermassive black holes suck interstellar gas, but at the same time affect the history of star formation in galaxies with strong winds," Tombesi said. "Astrophysicists describe this process as feedback between the central supermassive black hole and its galaxy, which over a very long span governs their co-evolution."

Researchers have so far seen this phenomenon in just one galaxy. However, now that they have a better idea of what they are looking for, they say they will be able to find other galaxy candidates for their care in the future.

In early 2016, JAXA and NASA will launch ASTRO-H, Suzaku's replacement satellite, and the instrument it carries will allow it to study more galaxies like the IRA F11119 + 3257 in more detail.

"These are not normal galaxies like spiral galaxies or elliptical galaxies, they're like wreckage after a crash," says study coauthor Sylvain Veilleux, at University College Maryland, College Park. "Two galaxies collide with each other, and now become an object.These galaxies provide all the material to feed a supermassive black hole that then spews out large-scale galaxies."