![Powerful winds driven by a supermassive black hole Line profiles showing the blueshifted broad components of the ionized/molecular outflow. Fits to the broad (blue), narrow (red), continuum (orange), and total (green) components are shown (shaded areas were used in the determination of the outflow sizes).](/sites/default/files/styles/crop_square_2_2_to_320px/public/images/news/Galeria_IAC_figura_Ramos_Almeida_final.jpg?h=aa1096c6&itok=VvhVLtFp)
The supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies have a basic influence on their evolution. This happens during a phase in which the black hole is consuming the material of the galaxy in which it resides at a very high rate, growing in mass as it does so. During this phase we say that the galaxy has an active nucleus (AGN, for active galactic nucleus). The effect that this activity has on the host galaxy is known as AGN feedback, and one of its forms are galactic winds: gas from the centre of the galaxy being driven out by the energy released by the active nucleus. These winds can
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