Researchers have identified the mechanism behind when black holes expel material into space following the destruction of stars, a phenomenon described as black hole “burps.” The study, published in Nature Astronomy, involved analysis of 20 tidal disruption events where stars were consumed by supermassive black holes.
Dr. Adelle Goodwin of Curtin University explained that black holes are inefficient feeders, with approximately half of a destroyed star’s material being launched back into space in powerful jets and outflows rather than being consumed. These ejections can be significant enough to influence the evolution of entire galaxies. However, the timing of these jets had remained unpredictable, occurring anywhere from one to five years after a star’s destruction.
Using radio telescope observations, Goodwin and collaborator Dr. Andrew Mummery from the Institute for Advanced Study discovered that supermassive black holes release jets during two distinct phases of their feeding cycle. The first occurs when the black hole is consuming material at very high rates. The second phase happens hundreds to thousands of days after the star’s initial destruction, when the feeding rate drops to approximately 2% of the black hole’s maximum consumption capacity.
Notably, this same threshold for jet release is already known to occur in stellar-mass black holes, which are significantly smaller objects roughly 10 to 50 times the sun’s mass. The research demonstrated that black holes of different sizes appear to follow the same pattern, releasing jets at comparable points in their feeding cycles regardless of their scale. This consistency enables scientists to make precise predictions about when jets will be launched, potentially improving telescope observation scheduling and resource allocation for future research initiatives.
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