Astronomers have detected the most powerful ‘UFOs’ ever seen blasting from a supermassive black hole in deep space.
Known as ultra-fast outflows, or UFOs, the streams of superheated gas were recorded racing through the cosmos at up to 670 million mph.
The colossal winds were launched by a black hole that is consuming matter at an extraordinary rate and lies more than 11 billion light-years from Earth. One light year is equal to 5.88 trillion miles.
Scientists said the outflows are so powerful that they can reshape entire galaxies by heating and expelling the gas needed to create new stars.
Over time, these violent blasts can slow or even halt a galaxy’s growth altogether.
The discovery was made after researchers used two space telescopes to study a distant quasar known as WISSH13, a monster black hole seen as it existed when the universe was just two billion years old.
They found two separate UFOs erupting from the object, one traveling at 10 percent of the speed of light and another reaching 30 percent – the speed of light is 186,282 miles per second.
Researchers said it ranks among the most extreme black hole winds ever detected and offers a rare glimpse into how galaxies evolved during the universe’s most active era.
Astronomers captured two ultra-fast outflows, or UFOs, shooting out of a supermassive black hole
Scientists detected the UFO by spotting unusual dips in X-ray light coming from the quasar.
Those telltale signatures were created when streams of superheated gas rich in ionized iron absorbed some of the X-rays on their journey toward Earth.
Because the gas was racing away from the black hole at a significant fraction of the speed of light, the signals appeared shifted to higher energies, allowing researchers to calculate just how fast the outflow was moving.
Most previous discoveries of these distant UFOs relied on a cosmic magnifying effect known as gravitational lensing, where the light from a quasar is amplified by a galaxy sitting between it and Earth.
While that makes the objects easier to study, it can also introduce uncertainties, making this latest detection particularly significant.
To make the discovery, astronomers combined fresh observations from the XMM-Newton and NuSTAR space telescopes with data collected seven years earlier, creating the most detailed X-ray view yet of the distant quasar known as WISSH13.
Researchers found that the slower outflow appeared in both the 2017 and 2024 observations, suggesting it is a permanent feature of the black hole.
The faster UFO, however, only appeared in the newer data, indicating it may erupt in powerful bursts before disappearing again.
The colossal winds were launched by a black hole that is consuming matter at an extraordinary rate and lies more than 11 billion light-years from Earth
The team believes the black hole is producing a layered wind structure, with a blazing-fast core stream, or ‘spine,’ surrounded by a slower outer shell known as a ‘sheath.’
Together, the two outflows are ejecting the equivalent of more than 40 suns’ worth of material every year, making them among the most powerful UFOs ever detected.
Scientists said the discovery marks the most distant UFO ever identified around a non-lensed quasar, offering a rare glimpse into how supermassive black holes shaped galaxies when the universe was still young.
Future observatories are expected to uncover many more of these extreme cosmic winds lurking across the early universe.
