Glimpse of a black hole's magnetic field could help understand how it feeds

The new study looks at a black hole that lies only 8,000 light years from Earth

Encountering a black hole would be a frightening prospect for our planet. We know that these cosmic monsters ferociously devour any object that strays too close to their “event horizon” – the last chance of escape. But even though black holes drive some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe, the physics of their behaviour, including how they feed, remains hotly debated.

In particular, the conditions close to the black hole and the role of its magnetic fields are thought to be key, but are notoriously difficult to probe in distant cosmic systems. Now an international team