Unusual black hole light bursts puzzle astronomers: 'We are finding a lot of weird stuff'

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"This is very different from anything I have seen before."

two black holes in space are surrounded by swirling gases the color of a peacock's tail feathers.
A pair of monster black holes swirl in a cloud of gas in this artist’s concept of AT 2021hdr, a recurring outburst studied by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Zwicky Transient Facility at Palomar Observatory in California. (Image credit: NASA/Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State University)

Astronomers have stumbled upon a pair of massive black holes in a distant galaxy that are triggering unusual bursts of light. These bright emissions, which appear to peak on a regular cycle, may be caused by the black hole duo disrupting a massive gas cloud — a phenomenon researchers say is the first of its kind to be detected.

The cosmic behemoths reside at the center of a galaxy named 2MASX J21240027+3409114, located roughly 1 billion light-years away in the northern constellation Cygnus. These black holes complete an orbit once every 130 days while being just 16 billion miles (26 billion kilometers) apart — so close that light takes only a day to travel between them. Over the past three years, they have consumed roughly 1.5 to 2 solar masses of gas from the hovering gas cloud, and they are expected to collide and merge in about 70,000 years, the researchers report in a new study published Nov. 13 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Astronomers were first alerted to the strange emissions in March 2021 by an automated alert system that uses data from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) in California to spot rapidly flaring objects in the northern sky. Initially, the event was flagged as a potential supernova due to the sudden brightening pattern. However, subsequent outbursts in 2022 prompted the study team to explore other explanations.

The event was soon reclassified as an active galactic nucleus (AGN), a term used for a black hole that feeds on material from a surrounding accretion disk. However, spectra obtained from observatories in Mexico, India and Spain traced an intriguing M-shaped pattern in the data that recurred every two to three months, a cadence that neither a supernova nor an AGN could explain.

Related: Astronomers spot unusually synchronized star formation' in ancient galaxy for 1st time

"This is very different from anything I have seen before," study lead author Lorena Hernández-García, who is an astrophysicist at the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics in Chile, told Space.com.

In 2022, Hernández-García and her team observed the same M-shaped spectral pattern in both X-ray and ultraviolet wavelengths in data from the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. "That's when we said, 'This is something interesting,'" she said. "I'm looking at the light curve more or less every day to see what's happening."

two bright points in the black of space swirl together with washes of orange gas.

Watch as a gas cloud encounters two supermassive black holes in this simulation. The complex interplay of gravitational and frictional forces causes the cloud to condense and heat. Some of the gas is ejected from the system with each orbit of the black holes. (Image credit: F. Goicovic et al. 2016)

So far, the data hasn't shown any characteristics of a tidal disruption event, or TDE, where a star is torn apart by a black hole’s gravity. The model that best fits the data suggests a massive gas cloud approached the galaxy on a trajectory perpendicular to the orbit of the two black holes. Larger than the binary system itself, the gas cloud would have then gotten torn apart by the black holes' immense gravitational forces. If this is indeed the case, the M-shaped emissions can be explained by hunks of gas that are ejected into space each time a black hole swooshes through the gas cloud.

Nevertheless, the researchers are not yet ruling out the possibility of a previously unknown type of partial TDE occurring in this galaxy, Hernández-García said.

Additionally, the ongoing merger of this galaxy with another one to its south, about 29,000 light-years away, may be generating significant dust. Astronomers expect gas clouds like the newfound one to be common in many merging galaxies that host binary black holes, but none have been detected before. Hernández-García attributes the lack of previous detections to limited instrumentation, and noted that, since ZTF began operations in 2018, "we are finding a lot of weird stuff that wasn’t possible to see before."

Due to the galaxy's vast distance from Earth, telescopes cannot directly observe the gas cloud or the black hole duo. The study team is now brainstorming new observations to track the gas cloud and determine its origins — whether it is inherent to the galaxy, a byproduct of the ongoing merger, or just a passing interloper.

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Sharmila Kuthunur
Sharmila Kuthunur
Space.com contributor

Sharmila Kuthunur is a Seattle-based science journalist covering astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration. Follow her on X @skuthunur.

4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jhixon
    Or this could be positive matter/energy colliding with the negative EM field of a black hole. Negative EM fields absorb photons, so the only light seen is the changes in current between the two fields, so the positive EM field gives off photons so this is why it looks weird.

    How does black holes form?

    First, we must explore all mechanisms that make black holes different than what we observe in our solar system with “normal gravity”. Black holes gravity is working in reverse of Newton’s Laws. We know this for a fact because we observe a black hole pushing on a galaxy, and “normal gravity” says that a force pushing should be pushed away, and it pulls back into the black hole. Based on source 1, scientists created negative mass, measured it and see the reverse gravity in action with their own eyes, and this negative mass exists in sound waves (source 5) and lights waves (source 8) naturally in our universe. Second, we look at the arch extending in an upwards trajectory over the accretion disk (see source 2). This is why the arch extends upward, which is against “normal gravity” as normal gravity pulls everything down so if this were in a positive EM field, then the arch would extend under the accretion disk. So these three things (gravity of black hole in reverse, creating negative mass and observing this behavior, seeing the trajectory of the arch extend up against normal gravity show us that it’s negative mass that is causing the reverse gravity in “spooky action”. Negative mass creates a negative EM field which causes gravity to work in reverse and until enough negative mass is collected it’s just clouds of negative mass in negative EM fields and electrons that don’t give off any light because photons are absorb, so you only see the negative EM field because the change in charges cause the positive EM field to give off photons so we see dark matter or really negative EM fields holding electrons dark, however the negative mass has not grown strong enough to create conditions for a black hole to occur. See source 6, which explains that two Neutron stars are made from negative mass with a negative EM field. In the case of a neutron star, the body of a star collapses from losing all of the electrons so matter falls until collision, at which point the Higgs field appears and if it’s under the influence of positive energy it becomes just a collapsed star, but if the field is negative it then becomes a neutron star.

    We know this because when the two Neutron stars collided into each other, which is the reverse that gravity works. Example the moon is being pushed by Earth's gravity, but yearly it is getting further away from Earth. This is normal gravity and it does not apply to the actions we see. This takes the size of the negative mass to reach a point when negative EM field is so strong that a black hole is created, which is exactly what happened when two Neutron stars collided, in a negative EM field causes enough negative mass to create a black hole. We seen this happen with our instruments, and this makes perfect sense based on what we see and that we saw a black hole created. So this clearly explains the formation of black holes.

    1 – Scientist’s create Negative Mass, behaves in reverse from Newton’s Laws.

    Physicists have created a fluid with "negative mass", which accelerates towards you when pushed, which is opposite from Newton’s Law, and is stable (1). Colleagues cooled rubidium atoms to just above the temperature of absolute zero (close to -273C), creating what's known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. In this state, particles move extremely slowly, and follow behavior predicted by quantum mechanics, acting like waves. To create the conditions for negative mass, the researchers used lasers to trap the rubidium atoms and to kick them back and forth, changing the way they spin. When the atoms were released from the laser trap, they expanded, with some displaying negative mass. "With negative mass, if you push something, it accelerates toward you," said co-author Michael Forbes, assistant professor of physics at WSU. "What's a first here is the exquisite control we have over the nature of this negative mass, without any other complications," said Dr Forbes. This heightened control also gives researchers a tool for exploring the possible relationships between negative mass and phenomena observed in the cosmos, such as neutron stars, black holes and dark energy.
    Physicists observe 'negative mass' - BBC News
    2 – Phonons/sound travels upward against “normal” gravity”.

    The experiment was conducted in zero-temperature super fluids, which are a strange type of fluid that flow with no resistance at all at temperatures close to absolute zero (2). Under those conditions, Nicolis and his team reported seeing phonons' trajectories bend upwards, seemingly in opposition to the effect of gravity. "In a gravitational field phonons slowly accelerate in the opposite direction that you would expect, say, a brick to fall," one of the team, Rafael Krichevsky. In 2018, however, Riccardo Penco at Carnegie Mellon University and Niciolis and made an astonishing discovery when observing particle-like sound waves (called phonons) propagating through superfluid helium, cooled close to absolute zero. They found that the phonons moved in upward trajectories, against gravity. Contrary to classical models of sound waves, this implied that the phonons were coupled to gravity, allowing them to carry minuscule amounts of “negative effective gravitational mass” as they travelled.Researchers suggest phonons may have mass and perhaps negative gravity
    5 – Sound waves carry negative mass.

    Using a theoretical approach called effective field theory, which is commonly used in particle and solid-state physics, the team calculated the mass carried by a sound wave packet propagating though a superfluid. The calculations show that sound waves carry a tiny negative mass, which means that in the presence of a gravitational field, such as that of the Earth, their trajectory is bent upwards. Esposito and colleagues found that sound waves also generate a small gravitational field. Although the mass of sound waves is tiny, it could be measured in experiments with cold molecular or atomic gases. The work might be relevant for neutron star dynamics, because gravitational fields would affect the physical properties of the superfluid stellar core.
    Sound carries mass | Nature Reviews Physics
    Example 8 – Light forms new negative mass particles.

    The University of Rochester researchers say they've developed a device that can create particles exhibiting negative mass, by combining photons from laser light and excitons in a semiconductor. Normally, light is bounced between a pair of mirrors facing each other, and the space where that light is confined is called the optical cavity, or microcavity. In this device's optical microcavity, the team placed an atomically-thin semiconductor made of molybdenum Di selenide, where it could interact with the confined light. Excitons in the semiconductor combined with photons in the confined laser light to form new particles called polaritons, which have negative mass.
    Negative mass particles forged in new laser device
    Reply
  • Ryan F. Mercer
    jhixon said:
    Or this could be positive matter/energy colliding with the negative EM field of a black hole....
    It's too bad you weren't part of the research team, because it sounds like you have all the answers already. Sucks to be them.

    I'm going to print your opus to pdf and mail it to them, right away! Boy will they be embarrassed.
    Reply
  • Torbjorn Larsson
    Intriguing find.

    jhixon said:
    Or this could be positive matter/energy colliding with the negative EM field of a black hole.
    Irony aside, since you don't present any quantification, it could not. Please take it elsewhere, this is a science site for appreciating nature as it is.
    Reply
  • jhixon
    Torbjorn Larsson said:
    Intriguing find.


    Irony aside, since you don't present any quantification, it could not. Please take it elsewhere, this is a science site for appreciating nature as it is.

    The foundation of quantification is measurement. I provided 4 sources here and have many more on the Cosmic Balance post that provide measurements to negative mass we created and the natural negative mass that exists. We created our own, we observe it and saw the reverse gravity and studied directly with our own eyes, we measured multiple negative mass (sound and light). So if you want to ignore what they see, what we create, what we measured, then pretend it doesn't exist, this is exactly why it's been 100 years since any progress has been made. My hopes are that someone with an open mind will see the validity of this. Not trying to convince anyone, just want people to be open to consider what the universe shows us.

    The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.
    Reply