Black holes are some of the most mysterious and fascinating objects in space. In 2018, a black hole with immense gravitational pull, some 650 million light-years away was found ripping a star to shreds as it got too close to it. In the present day, scientists observing the black hole for years found it to be lit up and spewing out matter even without swallowing anything in the last three years, hence bringing forth more questions about their nature.

According to a statement released by the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astronomy, this discovery caught them completely by surprise. Lead author of the study, scientist and research associate, Yvette Cendes, said that this was the first time that anything like this had been observed, the Indian Express reported

The researchers opine that the matter it is spewing out is the same that was gulped down as a star and is now traveling at half the speed of light. Researchers, however, have no answer as to why it took the black hole so many years to spew out the star. It contradicts what scientists have been taught about the feeding behavior of black holes. For instance, according to Cendes, it’s like when a person just burps after eating.

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The phenomenon was discovered by the researchers when they were looking back at the tidal disruption events that occurred during the past couple of years. A TDE is a type of event that occurs when a black hole rips apart a star that gets too close. They found that the black hole was revived in June 2022. They then applied for “Director’s Discretionary Time” with various telescopes, which is a priority request for telescope time for events that can’t wait.

Work of observatories

Through their observations, the researchers were able to identify the TDE known as AT2018hyz at different wavelengths and different telescopes. They were able to obtain their observations using various ground-based and space-based facilities, such as the VLA, ALMA, and the Compact Array.

In the case of AT2018hyz, there was radio silence for the first three years, and now it’s dramatically lit up. According to the study’s co-author, Edo Berger, the star has suddenly become one of the most luminous entities in the night sky.

Why this TDE phenomenon is different

It is widely known that when a star gets too close to a black hole, its gravitational forces will warp and stretch it. This phenomenon then produces an elongated material around the black hole, which gets heated up and produces a flash that can be detected even millions of light-years away.

But sometimes, some of the material from the star that was devoured by the black hole gets flung back into space. However, this usually happens right after the TDE. According to Cendes, the black hole is suddenly producing a lot of material from the star it consumed several years ago.

The materials from the black hole that are being produced by the TDE are usually around 10 percent of the speed of light. However, in this case, they are traveling at a speed of 50 percent. The researchers are now trying to determine if this phenomenon is more common or if astronomers have not been looking closely enough at these black holes in their lifetime.