For the first time, researchers from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have quantified the speed, shape and size of the winds surrounding black holes, allowing them to figure out how these forces impact their galaxies.

Using NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array and the ESA's XMM-Newton telescope, researchers from Caltech and Keele University of England were able to measure the speed, shape, and size of the winds blasting out from PDS 456-a super bright black hole located two billion light years away.

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PDS-456, the black hole at the center of this study, is a unique phenomenon in astronomy. It's close enough to Earth for a good look, but unlike other bodies, it's a rare "supermassive black hole". This type of black hole was much more common 10 billion years ago, not long after the Big Bang.

"These gusts are completely ionized. Every element is completely stripped of its electrons; the only element that is left is iron. If iron is in front of the black hole, it blocks the radiation from the black hole, so we see a dip in the intensity of the light coming from the black hole," said Emanuele Nardini, lead author of the study.

By observing the patterns of iron in front of the black hole and at its sides, researchers were able to determine these winds push out in every direction from the black hole. And these winds are incredibly fast, traveling at one-third the speed of light. They also carry more energy every second than the energy that would be emitted by a trillion suns.

The details of the study were published in the journal Science.

TagsNASA, ESA, super massive black hole, PDS-456, XMM-Newton telescope, Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, space exploration