Actually, yes: Some of these black hole jets seem to cause stars to explode.
The stars in question are white dwarfsburnt-out shells of stars that take on hydrogen from their companion star.
The team found twice as many novae erupting near M87s 3,000 light-year-long plasma jet than elsewhere in the galaxy.
An artist’s concept of a black hole jet kicking off a nova.Illustration: NASA, ESA, J. Olmsted (STScI)
Theres something that the jet is doing to the star systems that wander into the surrounding neighborhood.
But its not clear that its a physical pushing.
It could be the effect of the pressure of the light emanating from the jet.
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the plasma jet spewing from M87. Image: NASA, ESA, A. Lessing (Stanford University), E. Baltz (Stanford University), M. Shara (AMNH), J. DePasquale (STScI)
When you deliver hydrogen faster, you get eruptions faster.
In other words, those black hole jets are as long as 140 Milky Way galaxies lined up end-to-end.
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Are We Inside a Black Hole?
