Black holes are notorious for pulling things toward them. But in some cases, black holes can act as powerful engines to blast material away. One of those black holes is found in Cygnus A, a large galaxy embedded within in a cluster of galaxies. Cygnus A's black hole is blasting a jet — a tightly-wound column of material — away from it at extremely high speeds. Astronomers found that his jet ricocheted off a wall of hot gas, then punched a hole in a cloud of energetic particles, leaving behind a gigantic hole. By studying this kind of behavior, scientists can better understand how black holes affect their surroundings. Only an X-ray telescope with the sharp vision of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory could make such a discovery.
