Scientists Pinpoint Black Hole Jet Timing at 2% Feeding Rate After 20 Star-Death Events
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Sep 17
Scientists Pinpoint Black Hole Jet Timing at 2% Feeding Rate After 20 Star-Death Events
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 17
Summary
A 20-event radio study found supermassive black holes launch jets in two phases, including a delayed burst hundreds to thousands of days after a star is torn apart.
That later jet appears when the feeding rate falls to about 2% of the black hole’s maximum swallowing rate, resolving why past outbursts seemed to arrive after widely varying delays.
Goodwin and Andrew Mummery reported in Nature Astronomy that the same threshold already seen in stellar-mass black holes also seems to govern far larger black holes.
The result should let astronomers predict narrower observation windows for tidal disruption events, saving telescope time and helping measure how jet strength depends on black hole properties.