"Galactic Tantrums: Unraveling the Mysteries of Black Hole Winds"

Researchers have observed a supermassive black hole in the distant galaxy Markarian 817 expelling a sustained gust of ultrafast cosmic wind, which cleared a region around the black hole of dust and hindered star formation for several hundred days. This finding suggests that black holes can significantly reshape the galaxies they inhabit, shedding light on the process of galaxy formation. The study, conducted using data from NASA's Swift Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton mission, could also explain the peculiar bald patch surrounding the Milky Way's own supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.