Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2026

26 MARCH-APRIL 2026 ASTRO PUBLISHING into a donut-shaped ring around the black hole, known as a torus. As su- permassive black holes gather mat- ter from the torus’ inner walls, they form an accretion disk, similar to a whirlpool of water swirling around a drain. This disk grows hotter through friction, eventually becom- ing hot enough to emit light. This glowing matter can become so bright that resolving details within the galaxy’s center with ground- based telescopes is difficult. It’s made even harder due to the bright, concealing starlight within Circinus. Further, since the torus is incredibly dense, the inner region of the in- falling material, heated by the black T he Circinus Galaxy, a galaxy about 13 million light-years away, contains an active super- massive black hole that continues to influence its evolution. The largest source of infrared light from the re- gion closest to the black hole itself was thought to be outflows, or streams of superheated matter that fire outward. Now, new observa- tions by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, seen here with a new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, provide evidence that re- verses this thinking, suggesting that most of the hot, dusty material is ac- tually feeding the central black hole. The technique used to gather this data also has the potential to ana- lyze the outflow and accretion com- ponents for other nearby black holes. Supermassive black holes like those in Circinus remain active by consuming surrounding matter. In- falling gas and dust accumulates Unprecedented look into heart of Circinus Galaxy by NASA/ESA/CSA NASA Webb Mission Team