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This story was originally published by NASA and is unaltered.
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NASA’s Swift Studies Gas-Churning Monster Black Holes [1]

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Date: 2024-11

Finally, they settled on another possibility, the tidal disruption of a gas cloud, one that was bigger than the binary itself. When the cloud encountered the black holes, gravity ripped it apart, forming filaments around the pair, and friction started to heat it. The gas got particularly dense and hot close to the black holes. As the binary orbits, the complex interplay of forces ejects some of the gas from the system on each rotation. These interactions produce the fluctuating light Swift and ZTF observe.

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[1] Url: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/swift/nasas-swift-studies-gas-churning-monster-black-holes/

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