theSIGNAL SCIENCE
19 July 2026
"The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
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Science

Webb Telescope Catches a Black Hole Feeding

For the first time, astronomers have watched gas travel down cosmic filaments and directly into the hungry mouth of a supermassive black hole.

Picture a straw the size of a galaxy. That is roughly what the James Webb Space Telescope has just photographed — enormous threads of cooling gas that stretch from a galaxy's hot outer atmosphere all the way down to the spinning disk that feeds its central black hole. The images, published on 14 July in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by a team led by the Université de Montréal, are the clearest evidence yet of how these cosmic giants keep eating. Here is the puzzle that has bothered astronomers for decades.

Supermassive black holes — objects that can be billions of times heavier than our Sun — do not sit quietly at the centre of their galaxies. When gas falls toward them, the material heats up so violently that it fires enormous jets of energy back outward. Those jets warm the surrounding gas, which should, in theory, stop the gas from cooling and falling inward again. The black hole, it seems, should starve itself.

Yet many of them clearly do not. The new JWST observations suggest why. Gas that is heated by the black hole's jets can eventually cool again, condensing into long, thin filaments that drift back toward the galaxy's centre. It is a self-regulating cycle — messy, dramatic, and apparently very effective.

Photo: NASA Hubble Space Telescope / Unsplash
A JWST composite image reveals glowing gas filaments threading toward a galaxy's central black hole.
Discuss
  • What does the self-regulating fuel cycle of a black hole suggest about balance in nature?
  • Why might it have taken decades to observe this feeding process directly, despite knowing black holes exist?
  • The black hole at the centre of our galaxy is currently quiet — should we be relieved or curious about when it might become active?
Science

One Crash, 800 Million Years of Chaos

Picture a rock the size of a small country shattering in the asteroid belt. Researchers at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, believe that is exactly what happened 800 million years ago — and the debris rained down on Earth, the Moon, and Mars all at once. Earth has since scrubbed away almost every scar. Volcanoes, plate tectonics, and rain have quietly erased the evidence. The Moon, however, keeps perfect records. Dr.…
  • Could a single asteroid collision have shaped the evolution of life on Earth?
∞
We are all working together to solve the astrophysics questions about how these black holes get their fuel and how they interact with their host galaxy.
Megan Donahue, University Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University
Science

Old Pill, New Hope for Long COVID

In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 399 exhausted people volunteered to test a decades-old antidepressant against long COVID fatigue. The drug — fluvoxamine, sold as Luvox — was already sitting on pharmacy shelves worldwide. Researchers from McMaster University, Stanford, and several Brazilian institutions ran a rigorous randomised trial. They found a 99 percent probability that fluvoxamine outperformed a placebo in reducing fatigue after just 60 days.…
  • Should doctors prescribe fluvoxamine for long COVID fatigue right now?
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theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
filamentssupermassive
self-regulatingbombardmentrigorous
condensingoutperformed
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Discourse markers — contrast and concession (Nevertheless, Whereas, Despite, However, Although, Even though, While)
Contrast and concession markers signal an unexpected or opposing relationship between two ideas. 'Despite' and 'Although/Even though' introduce the surprising or weaker point, while 'Nevertheless', 'However', and 'Whereas' connect two contrasting clauses or sentences.
Nevertheless · Whereas · Despite · However · Although · Even though · While
  1. The black hole's jets heat the surrounding gas and should stop it from cooling. , gas can eventually condense into filaments and fall back toward the centre.
  2. the Moon has preserved its ancient craters perfectly, Earth's volcanoes and plate tectonics have erased almost all the evidence of the same bombardment.
  3. firing enormous jets of energy outward, many supermassive black holes clearly do not starve themselves.
  4. Fluvoxamine is a decades-old antidepressant. , researchers found it had a 99 percent probability of outperforming a placebo in reducing long COVID fatigue.
  5. the JWST images show the gas filaments in extraordinary detail, scientists are still working to fully understand how black holes interact with their host galaxies.
  6. The Moon keeps a perfect record of ancient impacts, Earth has scrubbed away nearly every scar over hundreds of millions of years.
3IDIOMS
Define each idiom in your own words. Then write one in a sentence of your own.
  1. keep eating (used about the black hole)
  2. starve itself
  3. reads those lunar craters like an ancient diary
  4. sitting on pharmacy shelves
  5. scrubbed away
4CRITICAL THINKING
All three discoveries — the black hole's feeding cycle, the ancient asteroid bombardment, and fluvoxamine's effect on long COVID — involved revisiting something already known: a galaxy, a rock in space, and an old pill. What does this pattern suggest about where scientists should be looking for future breakthroughs?
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
The three articles describe discoveries made possible by powerful telescopes, lunar geology, and repurposed medicine — none of which required building something entirely new. Write a short argument for or against the idea that science should prioritise reusing existing tools and knowledge before investing in new ones.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • warm→→
  • tired→→
  • large→→
  • damaged→→
  • concerned→→
  • helpful→→
8SPEAKING
  1. What makes the Moon a better scientific record-keeper than Earth?
  2. Why might a cheap existing drug outperform newly developed treatments?
  3. How does Webb change what telescopes in Chile and Hawaii could achieve?
  4. What does the 800-million-year delay in understanding an event reveal about science?