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While black holes don’t emit light, their influence can be seen. Swirling gas, energetic jets, and even ripples in space-time give them away.

Missions like NuSTAR, NICER, and Swift help us study material swirling around black holes, which heats up to millions of degrees and glows in X-ray light. We can see how black holes interact with stuff around them, and sometimes we even catch them having a snack.

Bursts of gamma-rays announce the birth of some black holes. Our Fermi and Swift observatories keep a continuous eye out for such bursts, which signal either the collapse of a large star or the merger of two neutron stars. Learn more:

You’ve heard of the big Black Friday sales, but we’re taking today to celebrate a doorbuster of cosmic proportion: Black Hole Friday.

Get lost in one of space's greatest mysteries:

We now have a full profile of the atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry in a distant planet's skies.