Black holes may have a more varied diet than scientists originally thought. According to recent press release by the European Southern Observatory, an international team of astronomers has determined that supermassive black holes can be fed by cold systems.


Black holes may have a more varied diet than scientists originally thought. 

According to recent press release by the European Southern Observatory, an international team of astronomers has determined that supermassive black holes can be fed by cold systems. 

The previous belief was that they were sustained by “a slow and steady diet of hot ionised gas from the galaxy's halo.” 

However, the group uncovered evidence of cold inputs with the help of the powerful ALMA observatory in Chile. 

There, they were able to find a galaxy with a central supermassive black hole; speeding toward the abyss at more than 620,000 miles per hour were “three massive clumps of cold gas.”  

One of study’s authors, Grant Tremblay, explains, “This very, very hot gas can quickly cool, condense, and precipitate in much the same way that warm, humid air in Earth's atmosphere can spawn rain clouds and precipitation.” 

He goes on to say that “The newly condensed clouds then rain in on the galaxy, fueling star formation and feeding its supermassive black hole.” 

The next step is to find evidence of this kind of precipitation in other galaxies.