Quasar winds with record energy levels were seen fleeing a distant galaxy
Black holes in the distant universe blow winds with 100 times the energy of all the stars in the Milky Way combined. These great gusts, called quasar outflows, carry enough material away from their home galaxies to eventually shut down those galaxies’ star formation, astronomers report in six papers published March 16 in the Astronomical Journal Supplement Series. “We found the three largest, most energetic outflows anyone has ever found,” says astronomer Nahum Arav of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. “At that size, they’re a serious influencer for the evolution of the galaxy.” Arav and his colleagues used the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the masses, speeds and energies of outflows from 10 quasars, active supermassive black holes in the hearts of distant galaxies that can outshine the galaxies themselves (SN: 12/5/18). The observations, made over about 60 hours in 2017, mark the first dedicated survey of quasar outflows. Astronomers can’t see the gas directly. But as quasar light filters through the gas, atoms and...