How do you satiate the hunger of a supermassive black hole? With light-years-long rivers of cosmic dust, astronomers say.
Scientists have found evidence of remarkably long dust streams spiraling in toward the supermassive black hole living at the heart of our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda. It would appear that these giant streams quietly, but continuously, feed the cosmic abyss — and it's likely this has been going on for eons. The newfound streams illustrate how black holes billions of times heavier than our sun remain exceptionally quiet even as they gorge on nearby dust, gas and ill-fated stars. The findings owe themselves to scientists in Germany, Spain and Chile who analyzed archival images from NASA's now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope.
