The most detailed image yet of a black hole was recently captured by NASA.
The black hole itself is invisible, but the particles that spew out as matter falls into it can be seen with radio telescopes and a combination of x-ray and microwave images. A conventional telescope would have to be as big as the entire Earth to get the same level of detail.
The supermassive black hole that’s emitting these jets has 55 million times the sun’s mass, and the smallest of the detailed little particles in the photo is 15 light-days across. Scientists don’t yet know what causes the particles to shoot out of the black hole at 1/3 the speed of light (or how they keep their shape when they do).
[Source: The Daily What]