Black Hole Whips up Furious Winds while Experts Watch

The researchers found that these winds were physically driving gas supplies from the galaxy that the quasar hosts, "significantly contributing to mass loss" of that galaxy, according to lead study author Emanuele Nardini of Keele University in England.

Combining higher-energy X-ray data from NuSTAR with observations from XMM-Newton, scientists were even able to find signatures of iron scattered from the quasar on all sides. This proves that the winds emanate from the black hole not in a single trail, but in a nearly spherical fashion.

Researchers now hope that by knowing these wind patterns, they can determine how supermassive black holes eventually halt the growth of a galaxy - limiting how many stars and solar systems it may form.

"For an astronomer, studying PDS 456 is like a paleontologist being given a living dinosaur to study," added co-author Daniel Stern of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We are able to investigate the physics of these important systems with a level of detail [once] not possible."

Results of the study were published in the journal Science.

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