Astronomers Discover Periodic 'Punching' Behavior Between Black Holes

A tiny black hole's repeated incursions into a larger black hole's gas disk challenge previous accretion disk theories.

Astronomers have discovered a new type of black hole behavior involving a tiny black hole repeatedly 'punching' through a larger black hole's gas disk, causing periodic eruptions.
The phenomenon was observed in a galaxy about 800 million light-years away, with the larger black hole estimated to be as massive as 50 million suns.
The eruptions occur every 8.5 days, a pattern that challenges the conventional understanding of black hole accretion disks.
The discovery was made using data from the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) aboard the International Space Station.
This observation could indicate that very close supermassive black hole binaries are more common in galactic nuclei than previously thought.