New research shows that not only can gas gather itself into planet-size objects, but those objects then are flung throughout the galaxy in a game of cosmic 'spitball.'
NASA's NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) recently identified two gas-enshrouded supermassive black holes, located at the centers of nearby galaxies.
An image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is giving an international team of astronomers the best look yet at the growth of black holes over billions of years.
Astrophysicists have broken new ground in ways to observe a star swallowed by a black hole, promising to help paint a clearer picture of this cosmic phenomenon.