A supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy has been spotted “burping” gas, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This is one of the nearest supermassive black holes to Earth that is currently undergoing such violent outbursts.

In making this new discovery, NASA  found this outburst in the supermassive black hole centered in the small galaxy NGC 5195, which is now merging with its companion galaxy NGC 5194, also known as “The Whirlpool.”  Both of these galaxies are in the Messier 51 galaxy system, located about 26 million light years from Earth.

Scientists now think black holes could be “star factories” – not just star-eaters. “For an analogy, astronomers often refer to black holes as ‘eating’ stars and gas.  Apparently, black holes can also burp after their meal,” said Eric Schlegel of The University of Texas in San Antonio, who led the study.

“Our observation is important because this behaviour would likely happen very often in the early universe, altering the evolution of galaxies. It is common for big black holes to expel gas outward, but rare to have such a close, resolved view of these events,” said Eric Schlegel.

According to Nasa, not only is this one of the nearest supermassive black holes to Earth that is currently undergoing such violent outbursts, but the phenomenon is also starkly similar to how our early universe was shaped.

In the Chandra data, Schlegel and his colleagues detect two arcs of X-ray emission close to the center of NGC 5195.

“We think these arcs represent fossils from two enormous blasts when the black hole expelled material outward into the galaxy,” said co-author Christine Jones of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass. “This activity is likely to have had a big effect on the galactic landscape.”