Scientists revealed the mystery of the “hiccuping” black hole 14:56

An international group of astronomers from Germany, the Czech Republic, the United States and other countries has discovered the cause of the unusual behavior of a supermassive black hole located 800 million light-years from Earth. A few years ago the object suddenly started emitting energy intermittently. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Science Advances (SciAdv).

According to observation data, a black hole 50 million times more massive than the Sun at the center of a distant galaxy remained silent until 2020. It then suddenly flared up, making the material around it 1000 times brighter. Thereafter, eruptions were repeated every 8.5 days.

Scientists compared the hole’s energy spasms to hiccups. According to the findings, periodic emissions are caused by a smaller black hole orbiting a supermassive black hole. Observable explosions occur when a larger “relative” passes through the gas-dust accretion disk.

According to calculations, the second black hole is relatively small – its mass varies from 1 thousand to 10 thousand times the mass of our Sun.

Astronomers have also determined the likely nature of the outbursts that began just a few years ago. According to them, the strong energy emissions resulted from the absorption of a star that came too close to the black hole’s gravitational funnel. This led to the destruction of the star and provided a powerful influx of material into the hole, which made it possible to illuminate the accretion disk.

The findings challenge the generally accepted understanding of how black hole accretion disks are structured. These were previously thought to be homogeneous disks of gas and dust orbiting a central black hole. But the new results suggest that some disks may contain exotic components such as stars and even smaller secondary black holes.

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