NASA space agency has revealed that it has captured the burp of a black hole in the Messier 51 galaxy system that is located 26 million light years away from Earth.

Astronomers discovered the supermassive black hole’s burp with its Chandra X-ray Observatory, which captured two arcs of X-ray emissions close to the black hole. The arcs are likely to be the space fossils that were generated from two massive blasts, which would have occurred when the material was thrown out in the galaxy by the black hole.

The black hole is located in the center of the NGC 5195 galaxy that is currently going through a merger with a smaller galaxy known as NGC 5194 or the Whirlpool. This major merger of two galaxies is also facing some issues like all such mergers.

Astronomers say that engulfing stars, gas and matter is the nature of a black hole. But, cosmologists have first time been able to capture this scenario of black hole burping after a meal. This suggests that the black hole would have engulfed tons of gas and subsequently threw out some of it.

“Our observation is important because this behavior would likely happen very often in the early universe, altering the evolution of galaxies”, said Eric Schlegel of the University of Texas in San Antonio. The lead researcher of the study added that black holes do expel gas, but capturing such a clear sight of the occurrence is quite exceptional.

The arcs observed by the cosmologists are kind of a feedback given by the black hole to its galaxy. The event will have an impact on the chemical structure of the black hole’s surrounding environment, which in turn will contribute to the course of galaxies and planets. The co-author of the study, Marie Machacek of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said that the event is an evidence of black holes being creators and not only destroyers.