Jiri Svoboda

The black hole GS 1354-64 in the constellation Musca woke up in 2025 and began greedily pulling matter from its companion star. The orbiting X-ray telescope IXPE caught it at a rare moment: the outburst had already subsided, but the system had not yet settled down.

At the center of many galaxies sits a supermassive black hole. When gas falls onto it, the gas heats up and shines brighter than an entire galaxy: this is an active galactic nucleus. Sometimes a true hurricane erupts from there: a stream of ionized gas racing at tens of percent of the speed of light.