regram @nasa
The most massive black holes in the universe are often encircled by thick, doughnut-shaped disks of gas and dust. This deep-space doughnut material ultimately feeds and nourishes the growing black holes tucked inside. Until recently, telescopes weren’t able to penetrate some of these doughnuts, also known as tori.
With its X-ray vision, NuSTAR recently peered inside one of the densest of these doughnuts known to surround a supermassive black hole. This black hole lies at the center of a well-studied spiral galaxy called NGC 1068, located 47 million light-years away in the Cetus constellation. The observations revealed a clumpy, cosmic doughnut.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#nasa #space #donut #galaxy #blackhole #science #astronomy by stromaestro