"Distant Galaxy's Black Hole Duo: Unraveling Mysterious Hiccups and Flares"

Astronomers have observed a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy exhibiting periodic outbursts, emitting plumes of gas every 8.5 days before returning to a quiet state. This behavior, never before seen in black holes, is believed to be caused by a smaller black hole orbiting the larger one and disrupting its gas disk. The findings challenge the traditional understanding of black hole accretion disks and suggest the existence of a new population of such systems. The discovery was made using automated telescopes and NASA's NICER X-ray telescope, and the research has implications for understanding the behavior of black hole binaries in galactic nuclei.