Scientists have detected a midsize black hole — considered the "missing link" in the understanding of these celestial brutes — eviscerating an unfortunate star that strayed too close.
Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and two X-ray observatories, the researchers determined that this black hole is more than 50,000 times the mass of our sun and located 740 million light years from Earth in a dwarf galaxy, one containing far fewer stars than our Milky Way.
Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects possessing gravitational pulls so powerful that not even light can escape.