An artist's illustration shows a supermassive black hole, with a center millions to billions times the mass of our sun, surrounded by matter flowing onto what is termed an accretion disk. Supermassive black holes are enormously dense objects buried at the hearts of galaxies. This disk forms as dust and gas in the galaxy falls onto the hole, attracted by its gravity. Also shown in the illustration, which NASA released Feb. 27, 2013, is an outflowing jet of energetic particles, believed to be powered by the black hole's spin.
PHOTO: JPL-Caltech/NASA/Reuters
