The Black Hole Breakthroughs of 2024

The year 2024 brought astronomers some incredible finds about black holes. One discovery was a monster black hole that eats a sun's worth of gas and dust every day. Amazingly, this massive beast is visible to us from almost the beginning of time. Imagine this: scientists found two stars dancing around the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. This could mean that planets can form even in these extreme conditions! Our galaxy revealed a surprising trio of black holes. One is munching on a star while another swings around it. This discovery challenges what we thought about how black holes are born. After much searching, astronomers finally found two middle-sized black holes. These fill a gap between smaller and supermassive ones. A huge black hole in the galaxy M87 suddenly threw a temper tantrum, spewing out a powerful burst of energy. Studying this could help us understand how matter behaves near black holes. The Gaia space telescope unveiled a giant, sleeping black hole close to our Earth. It's been hiding in our galaxy all this time! For the first time, astronomers observed the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's center in a special kind of light called polarized light. This hints at a hidden jet of material shooting out from the black hole. These discoveries are huge steps forward in trying to understand these puzzling cosmic giants.