Researchers have identified the timing mechanism behind powerful jets and outflows released by black holes after consuming nearby stars, according to new findings published in Nature Astronomy. These outflows, sometimes referred to as black hole “burps,” can eject material across vast distances and significantly influence the evolution of entire galaxies.
When stars venture too close to black holes, they experience a phenomenon called spaghettification, where the gravitational difference between the star’s nearest and farthest points stretches it apart. Approximately half of the disrupted star material falls into the black hole, while the other half gets expelled into space through jets and outflows. The timing of when these jets launch had puzzled astrophysicists for years, with observations showing releases ranging from one year to several years after the initial stellar destruction.
Dr. Adelle Goodwin and Dr. Andrew Mummery studied 20 tidal disruption events using radio telescopes, observing instances where supermassive black holes consumed stars. Their analysis revealed that supermassive black holes—objects ranging from hundreds of thousands to billions of times the sun’s mass—release jets during two distinct phases of their feeding cycle. The first phase occurs when feeding rates are extremely high, while the second phase happens hundreds to thousands of days after the star’s destruction, when the feeding rate drops to approximately 2% of the maximum rate at which a black hole can consume material.
Significantly, the research demonstrated that black holes appear to launch jets at the same point in their feeding cycle regardless of size, mirroring behavior previously observed in much smaller stellar-mass black holes. This discovery enables scientists to predict more precisely when jets will be released, potentially optimizing the use of limited telescope observation time and advancing understanding of jet strength and its relationship to black hole properties.
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