P. -O. Petrucci

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.

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.

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.