For the first time, matter fall into a black hole at 30% the speed of light was observed

That star was eaten by a black hole…It seems black holes are at the top of the food chain.

TL;DR

For the first time, scientists observed a clump of matter falling into a supermassive black hole at nearly one-third the speed of light. Using the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, the team studied a Seyfert galaxy 1 billion light-years away, where a black hole 40 million times the mass of the Sun is devouring surrounding material. Surprisingly, the matter showed no rotation, contradicting traditional models of black hole accretion. This new finding supports the theory of chaotic accretion, where multiple misaligned disks of matter form and collide, canceling out rotation as material plunges into the black hole.

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After crossing the event horizon — the point beyond which nothing can escape a black hole — everything is trapped inside. While the mysteries of black hole interiors may remain hidden, astronomers can study the areas surrounding them. In a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers reported, for the first time, observing a clump of matter falling straight into a distant black hole at nearly one-third the speed of light.

These findings were made using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory and focused on a supermassive black hole, 40 million times the mass of the Sun, located at the heart of the galaxy PG211+143, around a billion light-years away. PG211+143 is a Seyfert galaxy, characterized by a bright, actively feeding black hole drawing in gas and dust. By analyzing the X-rays emitted by the material, researchers led by Ken Pounds of the University of Leicester measured a clump of matter falling into the black hole at 30% the speed of light — around 56,000 miles per second (90,000 kilometers per second). “We were able to follow an Earth-sized clump of matter for about a day, as it was pulled towards the black hole, accelerating to a third of the velocity of light before being swallowed up by the hole,” Pounds said in a press release.

Strangely, the infalling gas didn’t show any rotation and wasn’t behaving like the larger accretion disk of material shining around the black hole, even though it was first detected at just 20 times the black hole’s size.

Chaos reigns

The conventional view of a black hole involves a compact, massive object surrounded by a disk of hot gas. Because black holes are small relative to their mass, the material doesn’t fall in all at once but forms a rotating disk, similar to water spiraling down a drain, before eventually plunging into the black hole. As matter moves toward the event horizon, it loses gravitational potential energy, which is converted into radiation that astronomers can detect.

Traditionally, the orbits of matter within the accretion disk are thought to align with the black hole’s spin, forming a single disk. However, the recent observation, where the infalling matter exhibited little rotation, is puzzling — until the introduction of recent computer models developed at the University of Leicester, run using the U.K.’s DiRAC supercomputer facility.

These models suggest that matter can approach a black hole from any direction, and instead of just one disk, multiple misaligned accretion disks may form. Material could then “tear” away from these disks, creating rings of matter that might collide, canceling out their rotation and allowing the material to flow directly into the black hole — as the researchers observed.

This process, known as “chaotic accretion,” may be common in supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, which can accumulate vast amounts of material, especially early in their lifetimes or following close encounters with other galaxies. Over time, chaotic accretion might reduce a black hole’s spin, enabling it to absorb matter more easily, grow rapidly, and emit intense radiation, characteristics frequently seen in these objects in the early universe.