Cosmic Hurricane: Black Hole Has 20 Million MPH Winds

Cosmic Hurricane: Black Hole Has 20 Million MPH Winds

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Scientists have measured the fastest winds yet observed from a stellar-mass black hole, shedding light on the behavior of these curious cosmic objects. The winds, clocked by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, are racing through space at 20 million mph, or about 3 percent the speed of light. That’s nearly 10 times faster than had ever been seen from a stellar-mass black hole, researchers said.

Another surprising finding from the new study is that the wind, which comes from a disk of gas surrounding the black hole, may be blasting more material into space than the black hole is capturing.