JWST reveals hidden, far stronger black hole outflow in nearby galaxy NGC 1068

By the Everything Space news desk · 15 Sep 2026 · written from the sources below

Image: Phys.org

Infrared observations show the active black hole's gas outflow is up to 100 times more massive than earlier estimates, reshaping ideas about galaxy evolution.

Astronomers studying the well-known galaxy NGC 1068 have found that its central black hole is driving a far more powerful gas outflow than earlier measurements suggested. By combining new infrared data with existing optical and radio observations, researchers uncovered a hidden component of the outflow that had gone undetected using standard techniques.

NGC 1068, also called Messier 77 or the Squid Galaxy, sits roughly 45 million light-years from Earth and hosts a supermassive black hole with a mass between 8 million and 17 million times that of the sun. As gas spirals into such black holes, the released energy can blast material outward, influencing star formation and the future growth of the galaxy itself.

Using mid-infrared instruments aboard the James Webb Space Telescope, the research team was able to see through dust that normally obscures visible-light observations. Layering this data with archival optical and millimeter-wave measurements, they identified two separate streams of outflowing gas: one visible to conventional telescopes, and a second, dust-hidden stream moving even faster and containing most of the outflow's mass.

The full outflow reaches speeds up to about 1.2 million miles per hour. When the researchers applied specialized modeling to calculate its true mass and energy, they found values as much as 100 times higher than earlier estimates, totaling several million solar masses of ionized gas pushed away from the galactic center.

The team also assessed whether the ejected material might eventually fall back toward the black hole. Because the gas is moving several times faster than the galaxy's escape velocity, much of it appears set to leave the galaxy permanently rather than recycle back inward.

The outflow's strength also exceeds what radiation from the black hole alone would be expected to produce, hinting that the galaxy's radio jet may be adding extra mechanical force to the wind.

The findings suggest that many previous surveys of black hole outflows, which rely on optical data alone, may be significantly underestimating how forcefully active black holes reshape their host galaxies.

Written in Everything Space’s own words by our news-desk model from the sources above, and checked against them in code: every number in this report appears in its sources, and no sentence is copied from them.