THE BLACK HOLE'S COSMIC BURP
Scientists
had long theorised that when a black hole swallows a star - or any huge
quantity of gas - it would let out a fast-moving stream of plasma from
its opening.
Until now, though, the assumption had never been confirmed by direct observation.
This was also made more difficult by the fact that black holes do not devour stars very often.
The rare few cases previously noticed had also occurred in galaxies much farther away than PGC 43234, making observation harder.
In
December 2014 a black hole at the centre of galaxy PGC 43234, which is
relatively close at 300 million light-years away from Earth, was caught
in the act of swallowing a star by an Hawaii telescope.
Combining
data from their telescopes with those from other observatories -
monitoring optical, radio and X-ray signals - an international team was
able to put together a 'multi-wavelength' image of the 'cosmic burp'.
This 'burp' is a powerful 'jet' resulting from the ingestion of the trapped star.
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