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Adsorption discs

Scientists have discovered a large black hole that "hiccups", and emits gas fluxes. Analysis revealed that a small black hole repeatedly punctures the gas disk of the large black hole, causing the perturbations to be released. Strong magnetic fields, north and south of the black hole, shown by the orange cone, shoot the flux up and out of the disk. Each time the small black hole punctures the disk, it emits another star, in a regular periodic pattern. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT

Black hole "hiccuping" - astronomers are surprised by periodic eruptions in a distant galaxy

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In a distant galaxy, the supermassive black hole's intermittent gas fluxes led to the discovery of a smaller black hole in its orbit
A black hole with a warped disk. Credit: John Paice

A strange black hole with a massive distortion in its accretion disk has been discovered

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An international team of astrophysicists from South Africa, the UK, France and the US have found a large variation in the brightness of light seen around one of the closest black holes in our galaxy, 9,600 light-years from Earth, and they conclude that it is caused by a massive distortion in its accretion disk
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