Overview
- A peer‑reviewed paper published in Nature Astronomy on 17 September 2026 reports that black holes launch jets when their accretion rate falls to about 2% of the Eddington limit.
- The result comes from an international, multi‑wavelength study that examined 20 tidal disruption events and used 10 high‑quality cases to model feeding rates and radio outflow timing.
- Researchers identified two jet phases: an early jet during very high feeding and a delayed jet that appears hundreds to thousands of days later when the accretion rate drops to the 2% threshold.
- Knowing this critical accretion stage gives astronomers a practical way to plan costly radio observations and could make follow‑ups with facilities like the Square Kilometre Array more efficient.
- The finding supports a scale‑invariant picture of black hole physics, was driven by international collaboration and early‑career leadership, and will be tested further as larger TDE samples and new radio surveys come online.