C. Pinto

At the center of galaxy NGC 1068, located 47 million light-years away, lies a black hole hidden behind a dense veil of dust. But X-rays emitted by iron pierce through that veil. The Japanese satellite XRISM captured this glow and split it into colors, much as a prism splits sunlight.

A giant cosmic funnel sucks in gas from its surroundings. But not all of that gas falls in — some is spat back out, like splashes from boiling water. That's exactly what the ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5204 X-1 does: a compact object (likely a black hole) feeds so voraciously that the excess escapes in powerful jets.

The black hole MAXI J1810-222 behaves like a giant vacuum cleaner with a reverse valve: it pulls in matter, but some of it gets spat back out into space. This "backflow"—a stellar wind — had been spotted by astronomers before, but only as a blurry smudge in X-rays.