An artist's impression of the inner parts of the accretion disk around the black hole V404 Cygni. (Image credit: ICRAR) Spinning black holes have wobbly dance partners Supermassive black holes ...

Astronomers have viewed the outer region of an active supermassive black hole's accretion disk, thereby improving our understanding of these feeding cosmic monsters.

This artist's concept shows Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, surrounded by a swirling accretion disk of hot gas. Flaring hot spots that resemble ...

The gas and dust accumulate in a flat disk around the star, known as an accretion disk, as a result of strong gravitational forces.

To put that in perspective, the inner edge of its accretion disk is whipping around at about 14% the speed of light—that's around 42 million meters per second.

Spin transfer Artist’s impression of an accretion disc surrounding a black hole. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/oorka) Researchers in France have created a new experiment that could improve our understanding ...

The variability of the black hole’s activity is likely due to the random nature of the material flowing into the accretion disk, Yusef-Zadeh said.

However, the longer and brighter flares are more similar to tidal waves and are caused by more significant events. The minor disturbances within the accretion disk likely generate the faint flickers.

The gas in the black hole’s accretion disk had levels of nitrogen up to 100 times than the Sun’s and much lower levels of carbon (only about 40 percent of what the Sun contains).

An artist’s illustration depicts the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*. It’s surrounded by a swirling accretion disk of hot gas and dust.