Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have, for the first time ever, mapped the plasma "burps" of a feeding supermassive black hole-powered quasar that dwells relatively close to Earth.
While supermassive black holes with masses millions or billions of times that of the sun are thought to dwell at the heart of all galaxies, not all of these cosmic titans power quasars. Some, like the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, called Sagittarius A*, are relatively quiet because they are not greedily feeding on matter around them.
