Puff the Small Black Hole...

.. it can make such a big hole. Remember how a couple of days ago I linked to a post stating that astronomer now think that most of the X-ray emission from a black hole is generated by fast-moving material ejected (called "jets") which are from the disk of infalling material? Well, there is now evidence that these jets can clear out large cavities around the black hole, pushing the surrounding medium far away - as you can read here and here or in its full scientific glory here (library access required, sorry). This isn't new necessarily, evidence for such behavior from the supermassive black holes located in the center of galaxies has been around a for a while, but seeing it in a low-mass black hole that is nearby is new and suggests we may be able to study this process a lot better than before. Enjoy!