It turns out that even black holes have something like digestion.
When a supermassive black hole captures a star, it doesn't always swallow it quietly and neatly. The star is torn apart by tidal forces, part of the matter swirls around the black hole, heats up to enormous temperatures — and then the system can eject a powerful jet of matter and energy.
It is precisely this moment that astronomers sometimes quite informally call a black hole's "burp".
The most interesting thing is that such ejections can occur not immediately after the "meal", but after a considerable time. That is why it used to be difficult to understand why the same black hole first behaves relatively calmly and then suddenly starts ejecting powerful jets.
New observations have helped to better understand this delay.
Scientists suggest that after the star is destroyed, the matter rearranges itself around the black hole for some time, forms a disk, and only then are the conditions created for a powerful ejection.
So the cosmic scenario is roughly this:
first the black hole eats the star,
then it stays silent for a long time,
and then…
"excuse me."
And at that moment a jet of matter bursts out from the center of the galaxy at colossal speeds.
Of course, there is no real "burp" in the human sense here — it is simply a figurative name for a complex astrophysical process.
But one must admit: science becomes much clearer when a supermassive black hole can be described with the phrase:
"Ate — and didn't digest right away." 😄
