How the supermassive black hole that NASA found and has everyone worried is made up

This black hole was nicknamed “the devourer of the universe” due to its incredible ability to attract and consume matter. The images captured show streams of dust thousands of light years long flowing towards the black hole, helping scientists better understand how these gigantic objects feed.

What is the black hole that NASA discovered and is supermassive like?

NASA defines a black hole as “an astronomical object with a gravitational force so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from it.” Recently, the Spitzer space telescope, under the direction of the US space agency, released the details of some images of one of these phenomena in the Andromeda galaxy. There, dust streams are revealed heading toward the heart of this galaxy, providing a never-before-seen look at how these black holes feed.

According to NASA, “These currents help explain how black holes, billions of times the mass of the sun, feed as they devour gas and dust.“. This feeding process heats the material before falling into the black hole, creating a light show brighter than a galaxy full of stars. The agency described this supermassive black hole as a “silent devourer of the universe,” highlighting its ability to consume large amounts of matter without emitting much light.

Despite its large size, black holes themselves do not emit light. “The little light they emit does not vary significantly in brightness and this suggests that they are consuming a small but constant flow of food,” NASA explained. Astronomers can detect these supermassive black holes because of the matter around them, which forms an accretion disk that spirals toward the black hole, creating a visible vortex.

In an effort to make this phenomenon more understandable to the public, NASA used a virtual simulator in early May to show what it would be like to fall into a black hole. Using the Discover computer at the Climate Simulation Center, Goddard scientists created a detailed simulation of this process. “The destination is a supermassive black hole with 4.3 million times the mass of our Sun, equivalent to the monster located in the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way,” they explained from the US space agency.

The simulation showed a flat cloud of hot, glowing gas called an accretion disk, surrounding the black hole and serving as a visual reference during the fall. Also highlighted were bright structures called photon rings, which form from light that has orbited the black hole one or more times.