At the center of galaxy NGC 1068, shock waves work like the blades of a cosmic blender. They compress and accelerate gas ejected by the supermassive black hole, the active nucleus, and mercilessly grind down cosmic dust. Astronomers split the outflow's light into a rainbow using spectroscopy and saw that spectral lines of heavy elements like iron had almost vanished: the dust was destroyed into gas. This compression and dust removal proves that the outflow is driven by shock waves, not radiation pressure. In this way, the black hole regulates star formation: without dust, gas cannot clump together to form new stars. The blender is ruthless: even grains harder than diamond are pulverized into atoms, returning building material to the interstellar medium and altering the course of galactic evolution.