Astronomers catch black holes 'cooking' their own meals in bizarre, endless feeding cycle

By Sharmila Kuthunur
published yesterday

Black holes can actively regulate the material they consume, using powerful jets of gas blasted into space, according to a new study. It suggests many such cosmic beasts effectively "cook" their own meals.



The Centaurus cluster hosts many galaxies with monster black holes at their centers. New research reveals how these goliaths may be "cooking" their own food supply in a perpetual feeding loop. (Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/V. Olivares et al)


Black holes' ravenous, incessant feeding is fueled partly by the powerful jets of gas these gluttonous monsters blast into space, according to a new study. The research suggests that many black holes across the universe actively regulate the material they consume, essentially "cooking" their own meals.

The findings also offer a fresh glimpse into the complex ways black holes interact with and co-evolve alongside their immediate surroundings.

In the new study, a team led by Valeria Olivares, an astrophysicist at the University of Santiago in Chile, studied the blasts of X-rays and radio emissions from supermassive black holes lurking within seven galaxy clusters located between 170 million and 1 billion light-years from Earth. One of these is the Perseus Cluster — one of the most massive known structures in the universe — featured on the left in the image below. The bright-white pocket at the center is the collective light from black holes lurking in the cluster's many galaxies, each measuring anywhere from millions to tens of billions of times the mass of the sun.



Images of two galaxy clusters, Perseus and Centaurus, featuring black holes at their centers (bright white light), surrounded by hot X-ray gas (purple) and filaments of warm gas (neon pink). (Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk)

The new analysis, based on data from the space-based Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Very Large Telescope in Chile, also revealed numerous neon-pink "veins" branching out from the galaxies. These wispy filaments represent warm gas flowing between galaxies; this gas has been shaped and sculpted by the energetic jets emitted from the nearby black holes. These tendrils of gas are key to sustaining the black holes' feeding cycle, according to the study, which was published Jan. 27 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/space/black-holes/astronomers-catch-black-holes-cooking-their-own-meals-in-bizarre-endless-feeding-cycle