Astronomers had observed recently that one super-massive black hole in a nearby galaxy "burped." The black hole in the Messier 51 system burped because of the interaction of the said galaxy with another galaxy.
Black holes are known to be so powerful that it can bend light and swallow celestial bodies whole. Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory had observed another phenomenon that illustrates the bizarre properties of a black hole: "burping."
"Apparently, black holes can also burp after their meal," University of Texas at San Antonio Eric Schlegel said. His team believes that the "burping" may have an important role in the solar system. The "burping" is known in the scientific community as "feedback." Feedback is the sweeping of cooler hydrogen gas forward much like a snowplow. This affects the host galaxy and is believed to create new stars.
"Our observation is important because this behaviour would likely happen very often in the early universe, altering the evolution of galaxies. It is common for big black holes to expel gas outward, but rare to have such a close, resolved view of these events," Schlegel added.
The gas that was released during the feedback was believed to be some sort of galaxy that was "consumed" by the black hole. This particular black hole is a super-massive one near NGC 5194 (also known as Messier 51, a dwarf galaxy). This galaxy is "just" 26 million light-years away from the Milky Way. The distance from that galaxy from Earth is actually considered near.
"This activity is likely to have had a big effect on the galactic landscape," co-author Christine Jones of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in a statement. And another co-author, Marie Machacek, added that they think that galaxies are kept from becoming large because of feedback.
