It’s Becoming Clear Why Black Holes Never Run Out of Fuel

It is believed that nearly every large galaxy in the universe has a supermassive black hole at its center, with a mass ranging from millions to billions of times that of the sun.

Black holes grow by consuming surrounding matter, but in the process they also eject powerful energy jets. These jets heat the surrounding gas, delaying the formation of new stars and affecting the growth of the galaxy as a whole.

This has long presented researchers with a puzzle. As a black hole emits jets and heats the surrounding gas, the gas that would otherwise be consumed by the black hole—that is, its energy source—is dispersed far away. And yet, why is it that black holes do not “run out of fuel” and instead continue to grow?

To explain this mystery, researchers proposed the following hypothesis: Gas blown away by the heat eventually cools in interstellar space and...

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