The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) has observed a sudden, powerful outburst of gas from near a supermassive black hole in the active galaxy NGC 3783. Data collected in July 2024 reveal a high-speed outflow traveling at about 60,000 kilometers per second—roughly 20 percent of the speed of light.
Using its high-energy-resolution Resolve instrument, XRISM tracked the gas as it formed and rapidly accelerated. The observations suggest the eruption was driven by magnetic reconnection, a process like the one that powers solar flares and coronal mass ejections. The result offers new insight into how black holes release energy and influence the evolution of their host galaxies.
See more details at the SRON webpage and the ESA webpage below.
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Paper Information
Journal：Astronomy & Astrophysics
Title： Delving into the depths of NGC 3783 with XRISM III. Birth of an ultrafast outflow during a soft flare
Authors： Liyi Gu, Keigo Fukumura, Jelle Kaastra, Megan Eckart, Ralf Ballhausen, Ehud Behar, Camille Diez, Matteo Guainazzi, Timothy Kallman, Erin Kara, Chen Li, Missagh Mehdipour, Misaki Mizumoto, Shoji Ogawa, Christos Panagiotou, Matilde Signorini, Atsushi Tanimoto, Keqin Zhao, Hirofumi Noda, Jon Miller, and Satoshi Yamada
DOI： 10.1051/0004-6361/202557189
