P. J. Groot

A black hole is an insatiable cook, and the star beside it is a pot of boiling soup. The cook ladles out the soup, but some spills: similarly, GX 339-4 pulls in gas from its neighboring star, but it doesn't hold onto all of it. The excess matter shoots out from the black hole's poles in two narrow jets, like splashes from an overfilled pot.

A hot star in its death throes trembles like a plucked string. Its surface oscillates with amplitudes of thousandths of a magnitude, like noticing a light bulb in a room flicker 0.3% brighter. For a space telescope, such precision is routine, but from Earth, the atmosphere gets in the way.