A new Northwestern University-led study is changing the way astrophysicists understand the eating habits of supermassive black holes.
A new Northwestern University-led study is changing the way astrophysicists understand the eating habits of supermassive black holes.
While previous researchers have hypothesized that black holes eat slowly, new simulations indicate that black holes scarf food much faster than conventional understanding suggests.
The study was published Sept. 20 in The Astrophysical Journal.
According to new high-resolution 3D simulations, spinning black holes twist up the surrounding space-time, ultimately ripping apart the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) that encircles and feeds them. This results in the disk tearing into inner and outer subdisks. Black holes first devour the inner ring. Then, debris from the outer subdisk spills inward to refill the gap left behind by the wholly consumed inner ring, and the eating process repeats.
Read more at Northwestern University
Image: New high-resolution simulations show that the violent whirlpool of gas that encircles a supermassive black hole breaks apart into inner and outer rings. (Image by A. Tchekhovskoy and Nick Kaaz)
