K. C. Chambers

When a star wanders too close to a black hole, the black hole starts pulling it in. If the star doesn't fall in entirely but only loses some material, it can survive several such 'bites.' Each time, a chunk of gas is ripped off, heats up, and flares — astronomers see a bright spot in the sky.

The Universe was born in the Big Bang and almost instantly passed through a phase of inflation — an ultra-fast expansion that blew up microscopic regions to cosmological scales.