2025 was a big year for black holes (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva))

Black holes are arguably the most fascinating entities in the whole realm of science — these are regions in the fabric of spacetime that surround an infinitely dense, infinitesimally small point of mass and exert a gravitational force so strong that not even light can escape their grips.

It is therefore no surprise that just as black holes grip light (and everything else, for that matter) they grip the attention of scientists and the general public, too. And 2025 has been no exception, with the year bringing forth some intriguing and jaw-dropping scientific breakthroughs regarding these cosmic titans.

1. James Webb Space Telescope spots rapidly feeding "little red dot"

An illustration shows the JWST in space next to its observations of some of the earliest galaxies ever seen, the so-called "little red dots." (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Dale Kocevski (Colby College)/ Robert Lea (created with Canva))

In November, astronomers revealed they used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to discover a voraciously feeding and rapidly growing supermassive black hole in the infant universe. Existing just 570 million years after the Big Bang, this black hole sits at the heart of the galaxy CANUCS-LRD-z8.6, a so-called "little red dot" galaxy, or a class of small, bright and extremely distant objects the JWST has been routinely discovering since it began observations in 2022

"This discovery is truly remarkable. We've observed a galaxy from less than 600 million years after the Big Bang, and not only is it hosting a supermassive black hole, but the black hole is growing rapidly — far faster than we would expect in such a galaxy at this early time," discovery team leader Roberta Tripodi of the University of Ljubljana FMF in Slovenia said in a statement at the time. "This challenges our understanding of black hole and galaxy formation in the early universe and opens up new avenues of research into how these objects came to be."Read more about CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 and its supermassive black hole inhabitant here.

2. This black hole is a runaway!

Runaway supermassive black hole flees the Cosmic Owl galaxies leaving a trail of stars (Image credit: Li et al/ Robert Lea (created with Canva))

Sticking with the JWST, in December, astronomers used the $10 billion space telescope to confirm the first sighting of a runaway supermassive black hole. This cosmic titan weighs in at 10 million times the mass of the sun and is rocketing through space at a staggering 2.2 million miles per hour (3.5 million kilometers per hour), which is 3,000 times the speed of sound at sea level here on Earth.

The runaway supermassive black hole is pushing forward a literal galaxy-size "bow-shock" of matter in front of it, as well as dragging a 200,000 light-year-long tail behind it that is gathering gas and actively birthing stars.

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"It boggles the mind!" discovery team leader Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University told Space.com. "The forces that are needed to dislodge such a massive black hole from its home are enormous. And yet, it was predicted that such escapes should occur!"

Read more about this cosmic runaway here.

3. Black hole tornadoes at the heart of the Milky Way

An illustration shows a cosmic tornado flowing around Sgr A* the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva))

Not all supermassive black holes are associated with violent activity. Take our own supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), which sits at the heart of the Milky Way. Unlike other black holes, Sgr A* isn't greedily feasting on gas, dust and stars, but rather exists on a diet that scientists have related to a human consuming one grain of rice every million years.However, in March 2025, scientists revealed that it isn't all quiet at the heart of our galaxy. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team of astronomers discovered "space tornadoes" raging around Sgr A*, revolutionizing our view of the Galactic Center and the nature of "quiet" black holes.

"Our research contributes to the fascinating Galactic Center landscape by uncovering these slim filaments as an important part of material circulation," team member Xing Lu of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory said in a statement. "We can envision these as space tornados: they are violent streams of gas, they dissipate shortly and they distribute materials into the environment efficiently."

Read more about these space tornadoes here.

4.

The Milky Way's supermassive black hole was noisier than usual back in January 2025, when astronomers used the JWST to observe it throwing out highly energetic flares.

This represented the first time astronomers had seen flares from Sgr A* in the mid-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with the team behind these observations using them to better model outflows from supermassive black holes in research released in November.

An illustration of the mid-infrared flare moving as electrons spiral around the magnetic fields of Sgr A*. (Image credit: CfA/Mel Weiss)

"The mid-infrared data is exciting because, thanks to the new JWST data, we can close the gap between the radio and near-infrared regimes, which had been a 'gaping hole' in the spectrum of Sgr A*," Sebastiano von Fellenberg of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, told Space.com. "On the one hand, our mid-infrared flare looks like a typical near-infrared flare, so we now know flares also occur in the mid-infrared regime — and this isn't trivial as, for instance, the radio variability looks quite different, and we do not see pronounced flare-like peaks in the light curve."

Read more about this discovery here.

5. Supermassive black hole experiences 134-million-mph 'burp.'

If you thought Christmas dinner gave you a massive case of indigestion, spare a thought for the black hole at the heart of spiral galaxy NGC 3783. In December, scientists revealed they had witnessed the supermassive black hole in NGC 3783 burping out a jet of material at a staggering 134 million miles per hour (216 million kilometers per hour), which is about 20% the speed of light.

The eruption of plasma was preceded by a flare of X-rays spotted by European Space Agency (ESA) XRISM X-ray telescope, with follow-up observations performed by NASA's XMM-Newton spacecraft, helping to measure the scale and structure of this tumultuous cosmic storm.

An illustration of a black hole with golden rings of gas and dust around it with a jet of energy shooting upwards on its right side. (Image credit: European Space Agency (ESA))

"Windy active galactic nuclei also play a big role in how their host galaxies evolve over time and how they form new stars," team member and ESA research fellow Camille Diez, a coauthor of the study, in a recent press release. "Because they're so influential, knowing more about the magnetism of active galactic nuclei, and how they whip up winds such as these, is key to understanding the history of galaxies throughout the universe."

Someone pass the Pepto.

Read more here.

6. The power of 10 trillion suns

In any other year, the supermassive black hole mentioned above would probably scoop the award for most striking outburst, but not in 2025. This year, that accolade goes to a flare designated J2245+3743, spotted erupting from a supermassive black hole located in the center of a galaxy 10 billion light-years away from Earth.

What made this flare so amazing isn't just the fact that it is the most distant black hole flare ever seen, but also that it is pumping out energy equivalent to the output of 10 trillion suns! That is 30 times more energetic than the previous most energetic flare, the wonderfully named "Scary Barbie" spotted back in 2018. The flare is believed to be the result of a star wandering too close to this supermassive black hole, which has the mass of 500 million suns.

An illustration of the biggest and most distant black hole flare ever seen (Image credit:  Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) )

The fact that J2245+3743 is ongoing indicates that this black hole is still swallowing this doomed star, with discovery team member Matthew Graham of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) likening the situation to "a fish only halfway down the whale's gullet."

Read more here.

7. Astronomers discover the universe's oldest and most distant black hole…

In August, scientists revealed they have the most distant and earliest supermassive black hole. Sitting in a galaxy designated CAPERS-LRD-z9, another one of those JWST little red dots, this beast with a mass equivalent to 300 million suns, is seen as it was just 500 million years after

The oldest and most distance black hole has been observed. (Image credit: Erik Zumalt/The University of Texas at Austin)

"When looking for black holes, this is about as far back as you can practically go," Anthony Taylor, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cosmic Frontier Center at the University of Texas at Austin, who led the discovery, said in a statement. "We're really pushing the boundaries of what current technology can detect."

Read more here.

8. …And the biggest black hole (maybe)?

This blue horseshoe is a distant galaxy magnified and distorted by the strong gravitational pull of the massive foreground Luminous Red Galaxy. Together, these galaxies create the Cosmic Horseshoe system. (Image credit: NASA, ESA)

August was a big month for black hole discoveries — not only did astronomers discover the most ancient black hole as mentioned above, but in the same month a separate team of researchers announced they have discovered what may turn out to be the most massive black hole ever seen.

Located in one of the most massive galaxies ever seen and 5 billion light-years from Earth, this black hole seems to have a mass equivalent to 36 billion suns. Measuring the mass of such a massive body at this kind of distance is tough, and this supermassive black hole has tough competition from Phoenix A, the central black hole of the Phoenix cluster, estimated to have a mass somewhere in the region of 100 billion suns.

"This is amongst the top 10 most massive black holes ever discovered, and quite possibly the most massive," Thomas Collett, study author and a professor at the University of Portsmouth in England, said in a statement.

Read more here.

Who knows, maybe 2026 will deliver an even more massive black hole, or a brighter flare, or something we can't even currently comprehend. Whatever the case, it is certain that Space.com will be there for every exciting and mind-blowing discovery.

Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.

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