"Dancing Black Holes: Unraveling the Mystery of Galactic Hiccups"
TL;DR
Astronomers have discovered the cause of an unusual burst of light from a supermassive black hole 848 million light-years away, which exhibited periodic energy dips akin to celestial hiccups. They found that the black hole is orbited by a smaller black hole that periodically punches through its accretion disk, releasing plumes of gas. This challenges the traditional understanding of black hole accretion disks and suggests a significant population of similar binary black hole systems in the universe.
Topics:scienceastronomy#accretion-disk#astronomers#astronomy#black-hole#tidal-disruption-event#x-ray-telescope
- Astronomers have solved the mystery of why this black hole has the hiccups Ars Technica
- Persistent “hiccups” in a far-off galaxy draw astronomers to new black hole behavior MIT News
- 1st detection of 'hiccupping' black hole leads to surprising discovery of 2nd black hole orbiting around it Livescience.com
- Supermassive black hole's mysterious hiccups' likely caused by neighboring black hole's 'punches' Space.com
- Study: Distant galaxy's powerful flares reveal dancing black holes Interesting Engineering
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