Igor Chekalin of Russia selected the data used for this ethereal image of the Orion Nebula, as part of the Hidden Treasures 2010 competition of the European Southern Observatory.
The largest of the nearby galaxies, M87, now has the largest known black hole. It contains 6.6 billion times the mass of our sun and could swallow our solar system whole.
The most massive black holes began growing at a very fast rate when the universe was only about 1.2 billion years old, according to a new study by astronomers in Tel Aviv.