A truly bizarre black hole has been discovered and it’s unclear why it’s behaving this way

news hardware A truly bizarre black hole has been discovered and it’s unclear why it’s behaving this way

Astronomers regularly have the opportunity to observe black holes, and sometimes they can even see one consuming a star that got a little too close. Because the black hole “eats”, scientists know : This is also one of the points that make it a frightening space phenomenon.

Until then, however no one has ever seen a black hole “return”.

. Can you imagine a black hole belching because it has a “digestion problem”? Probably not, and neither do astronomers. However, this is the easiest way to describe what its scientists have been able to observe since June 2021which was presented to the public last week.

A dark history of spatial digestion

To understand what we are talking about You must go back to October 2018 : During this time, the AT2018hyz black hole, located 400 million miles (665 million km) from Earth, decided to attract a star that was eventually shredded be fore being engulfed. Then we speak of Spaghettification of the star

also called tidal rupture event (TDE). A flash of light is then visible to researchers who are used to regularly attending such spectacles.. Because of this, eating AT2018hyz didn’t catch their attention as much.

But the situation changes in June 2021, almost three years later. As a matter of fact, AT2018hyz is attracting attention again and is being “revived” for no apparent reason.. Scientists quickly realize that the black hole hasn’t absorbed anything since the 2018 star, and then wonder what caused this awakening.

Astronomers then decide to take a closer look at the black hole to understand the situation. “We have applied for observation time at several telescopes”explains Yvette Cendes, a researcher at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “When we witness an unexpected phenomenon, we must not wait to observe it. All our requests were accepted immediately.”

AT2019dsg, artistic illustration (Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab)

A never before observed spatial phenomenon

Here, scientists made a startling discovery by examining various sources of information, including particularly revealing radio observations: Almost three years after its last “meal,” black hole AT2018hyz threw back into space material belonging to the previously engulfed star

. A kind of “burp”, in short.

When this phenomenon is known, it generally occurs immediately after the TDE. Here, the fact that it takes place three years after the Black Hole Feast is just unheard of. “It totally surprised us – nobody has seen anything like it before”like Yvette Cendes.

Scientists have concluded that the black hole is currently ejecting matter at half the speed of light, but they have no idea why.. Why at this very high speed and above all why three years later? “In the case of AT2018hyz, it has been radio silent for three years and is now so bright that it has become one of the brightest TDEs ever observed.”adds astronomy professor Edo Berger.

Astronomers will continue to work on the AT2018hyz mysteryto determine if this is a truly unique case or if other similar situations have occurred in the past while going unnoticed by the scientific community.