Supermassive Black Hole in NGC 3783 Hurls Matter at 134 Million MPH — A Magnetic Storm on an Unimaginable Scale

A powerful burst of charged particles was observed blasting away from the supermassive black hole at the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3783 at roughly 134 million miles per hour (about 216 million kilometres per hour), or about 0.2c (20% of the speed of light). The event followed a short, intense X-ray flare and gives astronomers a rare, detailed view of how magnetic explosions near black holes can eject matter at nearly relativistic speeds.

Observations and Instruments

Japan and Europe’s new X-ray observatory XRISM detected a brief but intense X-ray flare originating near the galaxy's active nucleus. A few hours later, XRISM measured a high-speed wind racing outward from the same region. Data from ESA's XMM-Newton telescope complemented XRISM's measurements by mapping the eruption's spatial extent and helping to resolve the wind's internal structure.

What Likely Caused the Outflow

Researchers attribute the blast to magnetic reconnection — the same basic physical process that drives solar flares and coronal mass ejections on the Sun, but on a vastly larger scale. Around this black hole, the tangled magnetic field lines are far more intense and complex, and when they snap and reconnect they can fling hot plasma outward at enormous speeds.

'It’s similar to the flares that erupt from the Sun, but on a scale almost too big to imagine,' said Matteo Guainazzi, a co-author of the study and project scientist for ESA’s XRISM mission.

How This Differs From Jets

Many active supermassive black holes produce long-lived, narrow relativistic jets that can extend for hundreds of thousands of light-years. The short-lived wind seen from NGC 3783 is not a sustained jet but a rapid, wide outburst powered by magnetic activity in the accretion disk. Although jets can reach speeds much closer to light speed and persist for far longer, this event shows that one-off magnetic eruptions can also accelerate material to modestly relativistic velocities.

Why It Matters

Outflows like this are a key piece of the feedback loop between a black hole and its host galaxy. If a black hole expels or consumes too much gas, it can starve the galaxy of material needed for star formation; conversely, returning energy and material can compress gas and trigger new stars. Detailed measurements of timing, velocity and structure — made possible here by XRISM and XMM-Newton — help astrophysicists model how these processes shape galaxy evolution.

The central black hole in NGC 3783 is estimated to be about 30 million times the mass of the Sun. By comparison, a typical solar coronal mass ejection launches plasma at roughly 3 million miles per hour (about 4.8 million km/h), making the black-hole outflow in NGC 3783 tens of times faster and vastly more energetic.

The new results were reported in a paper published Dec. 9 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Instruments on both XRISM and XMM-Newton were essential for linking the brief X-ray flare to the subsequent high-speed outflow and resolving its properties.