Astronomers discover a strange universal rule behind black hole eruptions

Astronomers have uncovered a surprising rule that appears to determine when black holes unleash powerful jets of material into space. Even though black holes can differ in mass by millions of times, researchers found that they seem to follow the same fundamental pattern when producing these enormous cosmic outflows.

The discovery, published in Nature Astronomy , suggests that black holes can activate their jets at the same critical stage of their feeding cycle, whether they weigh roughly 10 times as much as the Sun or millions of times more.

The research was led by Dr. Adelle Goodwin, an astrophysicist at Curtin University's International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and a Forrest Research Foundation Fellow, alongside co-author Dr. Andrew Mummery of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.