Supermassive Black Hole Illustration Tie

Artist impression of the heart of galaxy NGC 1068, which harbours an actively feeding supermassive black hole. Arising from the black hole's outer accretion disc, ALMA discovered clouds of cold molecular gas and dust. This material is being accelerated by magnetic fields in the disc, reaching speeds of about 400 to 800 kilometres per second. This material gets expelled from the disc and goes on to hide the region around the black hole from optical telescopes on Earth. Essentially, the black hole is cloaking itself behind a veil of its own exhaust. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; D. Berry / Skyworks