Penn State researchers have found that black holes may be fussier eaters than previously thought.

Three professors discovered evidence of high-speed winds blowing away large amounts of gas in two quasar galaxies believed to be powered by black holes. The team was led by George Chartas, research associate in the department of astronomy and astrophysics. Niel Brandt, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics; Gordon Garmire, professor of astronomy and astrophysics; and graduate student Sarah Gallagher, who is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were also involved in the study.

"A black hole is an object that is so dense, nothing can escape the gravitational attraction of it, not even light," Chartas said. "We studied two quasars which are thought to be powered by black holes that are billions of light years away from Earth."

A quasar is a small fraction of a galaxy, Brandt said.

The researchers used data from a period of 24 hours and analyzed it over the course of a year to find that the winds surrounding black holes may be up to 10 times more powerful that previously thought.

"This is important because the amount of material being thrown out by the black hole is larger, and this can be used for creating new stars," Chartas said. The winds are also important because they can regulate what happens in a galaxy, and how a black hole interacts with other parts of the galaxy, Brandt said.

The team found evidence of substantial amounts of carbon, oxygen and iron being thrown out by the black hole at a speed much higher than predicted. These results were found using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched in July 1999 by NASA. It is the third in a series of spacecraft that have been launched for observation purposes, and is a sister craft to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Brandt said the Chandra X-ray Observatory orbits the Earth about once every 63 hours. The researchers said they are hoping that these findings will prompt more studies into how the winds of a black hole interact with quasars.

"The wind might provide an insight to the relationship between black hole mass and the central bulge of its host galaxy," Brandt said.