Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) witnessed a record-breaking black hole flare with the light of 10 trillion suns, this according to a report published in the journal Nature Astronomy on November 4.
The flare was the result of a black hole with a mass roughly 300 million times that of the sun, in a galaxy located more than 11 billion light-years from Earth, violently gobbling up an enormous star of at least 30 times the mass of the sun. The phenomenon, called a tidal disruption, is the biggest ever recorded in astronomical history.
Indeed, our universe is immense, and there are sure to be numerous things out there that have yet to be explained, but black holes are among the most mysterious. How much do we really know about black holes? We answer this question and more in the following gallery. Click on for more.